I Heart Decoupage!!!

 So, a few months ago, Christy McDonald (my college minister's wife) asked me if I could "redo/copy" a piece of artwork she saw at a church. 

I like to think that it was some kid who I ended up copying....but hey, I'm not claiming that this is an original idea, just one that I worked off of.... :)

I think decoupage is one of the funnest crafty things you can do. Minus the sticky hands it is my favorite thing of all time!! :) 

Here is what I started out with. A 3x4 foot canvas!! It was almost as tall as me! I first mapped/measured out how big I wanted my cross. What I found that was pretty handy was using a laser wall level. It helped in making sure my lines were straight. 

Then, I took my first couple maps and just started ripping. I held back all the blues, because I thought it would be pretty cool to make that just the cross color (as you will see in the bottom pics). I used {four} maps!! A lot more than I thought I'd need for sure!! I wanted to use some that meant something, but I also looked for different colors. Making sure that some were more vibrant than others. I used a map of Oklahoma, Middle East, Israel and The US. I started by just doing all of the outside edges and working in. Then I used all the straight edges and covered the crosses edges. 

Here it is, finished with a coat of lacquer on. Anything you do with decoupage you will want to poly or lacquer it to keep it from catching. 

And the finished product. For this effect I used wood stain, in Walnut (I thing any shade would be ok, I just chose the lightest). It was the first time I've ever used stain, and it runs like crazy!!! Just FYI. I love how the finished product turned out, but I wish I would have used more of a flat surface for the stain, it definitely ran too much, and therefore my circle isn't QUITE how I wanted it; but overall I love it!!

If you do want to try this, or something similar, I suggest using a smaller canvas at first. This was a big project to take on, so if you like quicker projects it would be wiser to choose the smaller canvas. This was a really fun project though!! Let me know if you have any questions!! Hopefully I get a picture of it in the church that I can post too! This piece truly made me feel like an artist :)