When we got married, Matt and I wrote our own wedding vows (with the help of a book from the minister) and we really liked what we came up with! Since our wedding I’ve been wanting to display our vows in our home somehow, and recently I decided to paint them on a canvas! Here it is:

To make it, first I bought a canvas and some paint from Michaels. Then I made a practice “canvas” out of paper that I taped together. After deciding how many lines I wanted for the vows, I measured out and drew lines on my paper. Next I decided which words in the vows I wanted to emphasize with special fonts. Then I started stencilling on the paper. I have a nice selection of stencils made by The Crafter’s Workshop, so I just picked a few fonts and dove in. I ended up doing quite a bit of erasing though, as I changed my mind about fonts and sizes and capitalizations. It took me a few tries to find what I thought looked good.

When I was finally finished with my practice piece, my hands were covered in graphite, my paper was smeared, my back was killing me, my floor was covered in eraser dust, and my kitties were ready for bed. I, however, wasn’t ready to quit for the night!

To get the canvas ready for stencilling, I painted the background a really light creamy color. After it dried I carefully measured out my lines on the canvas and drew them as lightly as I could. Looking back I see they aren’t perfect, even though I was so careful, but that’s ok with me. It’s just part of the charm, right?? Then I started my stencilling. When I was happy with the spacing and everything, I started painting the words. I tried to make my first coat pretty thick, but I ended up going back later and touching up a few letters where there were thin spots.

Once I was done painting the letters, I carefully erased my guidelines… but there were some spots where they didn’t erase very well. So I brought out my background color again and just touched up spots where my pencil was still showing! Yay paint!

In the end the whole process took hours… I don’t even know how long. But it was worth it! I am so happy with the finished product! And now our beautiful wedding vows are hanging in our bedroom to remind us every day of the promises we made to each other.

Update 18 January 2013: Here’s a picture of our room with the hanging canvas (and two sleeping kitties!) – just for you, Mom!