DIY Tea Stained Canvas Art

It was my wedding anniversary this week and I want to share with you some special art I have in our living room. After hearing all about our anniversary vacation last week, I told you I’d get back to artsy fartsy didn’t I?

This painting is the first piece of artwork we invested in for our home. It’s made up of the flowers from our wedding! How cool is that!? I came across Flowers Into Paintings in a bridal magazine and thought, “What a creative and unique way to make the gorgeous (and expensive) flowers from our wedding last forever!” You can look for me and five other pictures of my flowers at the Vale of Enna’s portfolio or the rest of my wedding by the one and only Misha Media. 

Oh yes, I said there was a DIY project here haha.  So Doug and I wrote our own wedding vows.  And I wanted to display them in our home somehow as a daily reminder of the promises we made each other, the values we share and the foundation we’d continue to build for family. Since our painting looked pretty basic on it’s own, I rewrote each of our vows on canvases to place on each side. I wanted an old romantic handwritten love letter type of feel to it (and wished I had some calligraphy skills). Here’s my tutorial:

1. I bought 2 square canvases.
2. Prepared a cup of tea.
3. Took the tea bag and strained some liquid out of it so my canvas wouldn’t be soaked. Brushed the tea bag all over the canvas making sure not too much liquid came out otherwise there’d be visible drippy spots. Dab up any drips with paper towels.
4. I let it air dry for a little bit and then came back to brush the tea bag on the canvas again until the color of the tea stained the canvas. I did this until I was left with an old time look rather than new bright white.  
5. I envisioned the vows painted on as if it were written with a quill and ink. But my paint brush and cursive was just not cooperating. So I busted out my trusty puffy paints! I wrote our vows on an angle. Then went back over certain words in a different color for emphasis. And that’s it!

My very own personal and meaningful living room art! J

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