Read, Know, Learn, Go

I'm always finding things on Pinterest and Create & Craft that inspire me to try something new and today's make is no different.

The original idea was shown on Create & Craft ages ago when they had a new show with lots of beautiful papers and large stencils/masks (can't remember the brand name but there were American). The guest took a canvas and covered it with paper, masked words and then painted over the top. When the mask is removed, the words are revealed in the base design. I've wanted to try it since I saw it and I've finally found an excuse!

In my school, I am the literacy co-ordinator and one of the projects I want to work on is improving the use of our library. I've found lots of nice ideas on Pinterest that I will be doing but my first project has been to make something arty to brighten up the room a bit.

This is what I've made

I started with a canvas that I've had for ages (but they are on offer in The Works at the moment) and covered it using PVA glue with pages torn from a spare copy of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone that I have for crafting purposes! I used the glue over the top of the papers also and then left to dry.

I then used the Cricut Explore to cut my lettering out of sticky back plastic- I used 3 different fonts all included in the Cricut Design Space subscription package. I laid the letters out onto the canvas (with the backing still on) so that I could place them accurately and then carefully stuck them onto the dry canvas.

When I had attached all the letters, I painted over the whole canvas with purple emulsion paint from a tester pot (Wilko's new 'magic' colour) and them dry brushed some hints of dark grey emulsion (Wilko's 'barely black') on top.

When the paint was dry, I used my pokey tool to carefully remove the sticky back plastic letter masks to reveal the text underneath. It was actually kind of fun too to see which words would be revealed. When one of the small letters revealed 'Professor Weasley' I had to smile (maybe Charlie teaching Care of Magical Creatures?).

I now want to try one for my own classroom with a fab quote I've seen on Pinterest that says "excuse the mess but we're learning in here", although this could work just as well for my craft room!

I am entering this project into the following challenges:-
CRAFT 'recycling' (old canvas)- 28.1
A Blog named Hero 'personalise' 29.1
Craft your Passion 'anything goes' 25.1
Ooh, la, la, 'once upon a time' (pages used from a book & it's for a library) 1.2
Polkadoodles 'case it' (idea seen on Pinterest and C&C) 30.1
Penny's paper-crafty challenges 'anything goes' 27.1