Hope you all have had a great weekend. I spent mine at the dentist and doing errands… BUT I did fit in some time to work on a piece of wall art. I was inspired by this vintage skeleton key wall art that I spied in Homesense a few days ago. I almost bought it, but it was a little more than I wanted to pay, and I remembered that I had an old canvas frame exactly the same size sitting in storage. So instead I took a picture of it and thought I’d attempt to create my own version.

Here’s the original from Homesense.  It has a wooden base and the key is thin metal mounted onto the wood. For my version, I took a canvas frame {I was getting tired of the lone poppy and it was looking worn and dirty – and not in a good “vintage” way}:

First I painted the edges, sides and spots on the front in brown acrylic paint (Deco Art). Doesn’t it look pretty? My mom was over and saw it sitting in the hall and said she was afraid to ask me about it in case this was the “finished” product!

I painted over the brown with three coats of antique white acrylic (Deco Art). Here it is after two coats:

I took a printout of my photo and drew grid lines on it. I followed the same method that I used for my Santa picture. I then drew the grid onto my canvas in pencil and began drawing square by square.

After this was complete I sanded {yes you heard right – I sanded canvas!} the edges, sides and a few spots on the front to give it some distressing.

And now for the hardest part…. the painting!! I didn’t use a paint pen, because I wanted to mix a few different colours to get a shade of brown that I liked with a bit of gold and black in it. I used soft black suede, brown and antique gold paint. I found this part quite finicky – it’s much harder to stay in the lines with a paint brush than with a paint pen!!

After a few touch ups and some light sanding/distressing here is the final product:

What do you think?

Linking up to the parties listed here,  WOW and Debbie Doo’s CopyCat Challenge.