Written by Kaitlyn
It’s hard to believe 2022 is upon us! One of my 2022 goals has been to work on writing more blog posts, and wow, have I been procrastinating on it! But the month is not over and new goals take some time to achieve. So here we go!
Making a flat lay
As my season of wedding photography is rearing back up, one of the things that I have been dying to add to my arsenal of awesome photography things is some rolled canvas backgrounds for detail shots. What is she talking about, you may be asking yourself. Think something to put the beautiful wedding items (wedding rings, wedding invitations, somethings borrowed, something blue, etc.) on. Painted. Beautiful. The whole nine yards! Gone would be the days of haphazardly balancing rings on tree branches. PRAISE!
Off to the Craft Store
Pardon the iPhone uploads for the next few photos. This was after I had gotten the canvas out of the wash! It doesn’t look like much yet, and boy was it wrinkly. Also pictured is the on-again off-again iron.
My endeavors led me to a craft store, which I will not name, to track down pretty much all the supplies that I had envisioned using for my flat lay canvas project. Let me put into perspective how long I was at the store: twice, yes twice, I had customers come up to me to ask me questions because they thought I worked there. But finally, after far too long at the store and a heart-to-heart phone call with my sister about acrylic paint, I had everything I needed.
First, I washed and dried the canvas. The canvas was not quite what I had envisioned (my craft store that I’m not naming didn’t have rolled canvas. I know this for a fact. Remember, I was there forever.). But after washing and drying it, it seemed like it would work out. Next came the ironing. Apparently my 10 dollar iron that I bought in college decided it had had enough. And then it was fine. And then it broke again. And then it was fine again. It was a whole thing. Long story short: I need a new iron.
Painting the Canvas
Creativity often comes with a bit of a mess, right? I was just LOVING the way that I could add textures with the paint. With this canvas, I wanted pink, but not TOO pink, so I mixed in a lot of white and gray paint.
Finally, came the fun part—painting with my new acrylic paint know-how. First, I put a white coat on my canvases and let that dry for a few hours before beginning coat two. I smeared the paint on those canvases like I was Picasso creating the next masterpiece. The second coat allowed me to have so much fun experimenting with textures and acrylic painting. I ended up painting two canvases: one was white with some gray to capture that bright light-and-airy vibe. The other is white with blush pink.
Once I was done, I hung them to dry. The pink one that wasn’t too overly textured with paint took about 48 hours to fully dry. The white one may have had a bit too much paint. It’s been drying for about four days and it still a little sticky. Note to self, don’t get carried away next time!
Overall, I’m super happy with the final product and very excited to use them during our upcoming weddings! To test them out, I used my and Schuyler’s wedding rings. You can see the product below. I’m pretty obsessed.
The finished product! So happy with how it turned out! Can’t wait to bring them to our next wedding day!