LAYERED CANVAS WALL ART TUTORIAL

Last year when I rescued this cute dresser from my neighbor's trash, I always imagined it styled with a giant piece of abstract art hanging over it.  Although the dresser was free to me, I still didn't want to spend loads of cash for the type of piece I envisioned.  So, like any good DIY blogger, I made do with something I painted myself.  I used the largest canvas that I had on hand (even a plain big canvas is expensive, too!) and was happy with the vibrant colors of the painting I made, even though I'm fully aware of my limited abstract painting abilities.  ;)

Since the canvas didn't fill the space as much as I would have liked, I compensated by filling in the space around it.  Here's what it looked like for last year's summer home tour:

I'm always keeping an eye out for a larger canvas that I can replace that one with, but in the mean time, inspiration struck to give this canvas a little more presence on the wall.  Using the same premise that I did for my layered silhouette artwork, I thought I could add a piece behind the canvas to make it seem bigger.

I thought about having a piece of plywood cut to size, but then I remembered I had left over insulated sheathing that I used for the DIY Airplane Art in my son's room.  It wouldn't be as heavy as a large piece of plywood hanging on the wall, and it was already in my garage, so yay for free!

To cover the sheathing, I almost defaulted to black and white striped fabric, but then this navy and white polka dot in my stash caught my eye.  I've used it as a make-shift runner on a few tables here and here before.  I really liked the mix of the polka dot polish pottery plates that I had hung on the wall with the canvas, so the navy polka dot fabric quickly won out.

This was such a simple project!  I started by cutting the sheathing to the size I wanted.  It's easy to cut with a good straight edge and utility knife.

Then, I layed it down on the wrong side of a piece of fabric, leaving several inches around each side.

Next, I wrapped the excess fabric around each side.  I knew that hot glue would not work well on the foam, so I used good 'ol duct tape to secure the edges.  Just like replacing the fabric on a chair seat, I secured all of the sides first, then tightly pulled the fabric at the corners for a sharp edge.

That's all there is to it!

Rather than thinking about a way to attach hangers from the back of the foam board,  I just used a few nails and tapped them straight through the front of the foam board to attach it to the wall.  The foam board was a little bit bowed, so I used about three nails so it would all be snug against the wall.

Then, I used two more nails through the foam board to hang the canvas (my trick for making sure that pictures don't shift and get crooked).

Side view, nice and flush with the wall:

What do you think?  Love this project?  I'd appreciate it if you'd pin it!