Christmas DIY Canvas Subway Wall Art

DIY Subway wall art has been all the rage over the past few years. However, somehow I never jumped on the boat. When we started working on our Martha Stewart Living Holiday Collection project I knew I wanted to add some of my own personal touches to our entry hall. I felt that this was finally the time to make my own DIY subway art. Thankfully, I had bought two rather large canvas’ on sale a few years back that had been taking up space in our home. One had a small hole in it and the other was in perfect condition. I knew that this would add a nice DIY touch to our front entry hall.

Supplies:

• 18 x 24 canvas
• 6 sheets of vinyl from My Vinyl Direct
• Transfer Tape
• Cricut Mini
• Various Font/Shape Cartridges
• Cricut Craft Room
• Rust-Oleum Spray Paint, Colonial Red
• Rust-Oleum Comfort Grip
• Crafting tweezers

I began designing phrases using Cricut Craft Room from various cartridges I already owned. Once I had my first mat set I began cutting out the phrases on the vinyl. I used the Vinyl settings and made the following adjustments: Depth 3, Pressure 2, and Speed setting on 4. *If this is your first time cutting vinyl on your die-cut machine ALWAYS practice on a scrap sheet to ensure your settings are correct. I’ve found that every machine seems to vary.

Once you have your first phrases cut out remove all the excess vinyl from the mat so that you can just read your phrases.

Then, using transfer tape, begin to carefully add transfer tape to your first phrase.

Remove phrase from mat (using transfer tape), and place on canvas. Smooth out with plastic applicator.

Carefully, remove the transfer tape from the canvas. The vinyl won’t be super sticky on the canvas so you have to do this slowly so that the vinyl sticks.

Repeat the above steps until your canvas is just about full with phrases and or images.

* I would cut the vinyl and place them on the canvas before I actually adhered them to the canvas (as shown above).

Once all the phrases were on the canvas I was ready to spray paint. I placed my canvas on top of a drop cloth. Don’t worry about the colors of your vinyl not matching.

I spray a few light coats of spray paint on the canvas. Letting it dry 15-20 minutes in between. *I love using my Rust-Oleum Comfort Grip–easy to use and makes spray painting super easy.

Once the final coat of paint was dry I began peeling off the vinyl with crafting tweezer.

Remember to slowly remove the vinyl. Some parts I had to remove the vinyl with my fingers instead of the tweezers.

Now, display your new art with pride where everyone can see it!

I love the way our front entry way looks at night… all lit up and gleaming with joy and hope for this holiday season!

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this post. I was provided vinyl from My Vinyl Direct to create this project; however, I was not compensated. 

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