I’ve always loved fabric wall art. Big or small, embellished or bare fabric, they are beautiful to me. Maybe it’s because I love being around fabric. Maybe it is because I can’t draw or paint or sketch like I would like to be able to, so the blank canvas, fabrics cut and shaped, sometimes embellished are my replacement of this skill. 
This made wall décor for the nursery incredibly easy for me. Owls + blank canvas + fabulous fabrics = wall art I can do and afford! So to continue the spirit of giving, I thought I would post the directions for the owl wall art.

Buy your canvas.
Art & craft stores such as Pat Catans, Michaels and JoAnns all carry artist canvas. Don’t bother with the expensive kind since you’ll be covering the actual canvas. The ones I used were 10 x 10 in size.

Cut.
From your background fabric cut a piece that will cover your canvas size with at least 3” extra on each side. This extra fabric will allow you to wrap around the edge of the canvas and to the back for securing.

Design.
I used our nursery fabric, Alexander Henry Spotted Owl, for inspiration on the owl shapes and sketched and erased paper until I was happy with the results.  In the past I have done image searches and found clip art to trace. Just make sure to respect copyright laws and use clip art or photos that are royalty free or that you own.
1.) Once you have the images sketched on paper, trace the sections (each part that will be in a different fabric) onto Steam-A-Seam II Lite.
2.) Roughly cut them out and peel one side of the waxy paper (the side without the sketching on it) away from the sticky glue. Put the shape glue side down to the wrong side of the fabric.
3.) Press with a warm iron, no steam. Cut on the lines to cut out the shapes. Peel away the remaining (second) side of the waxy paper and arrange the shapes back into the original design you sketched in the center of the background fabric. Press with an iron and use steam to make the bond permanent.

Decorate.
Embellish to your heart’s content. Ribbons, couching, decorative stitches, free motion or just let the fabric speak for itself.

Cover the canvas.
You will need a small staple gun for most fabrics. I found a cheap “girl toolkit” and have found it handy in many crafting and home repair situations. There is no right or wrong way to cover the canvas. I have found that starting on one side and moving to the opposite side, rather than working in a circle around the canvas edges, provides much more professional results with less buckling and bubbling of the fabric. If your wall art is going to have the sides exposed, make sure to wrap the fabric all the way to the backside of the canvas and staple there so the staples can’t be seen. Staple away!

Finishing.
If your wall art is going to have the sides exposed another nice way to finish the canvas is to use a coordinating grosgrain ribbon or fabric along the sides to cover the staples. Hang and enjoy!
 

Here are the other ones I did for a series of 3. The striped one was inspired from my shower invitations!

I would love to see some of your wall art pieces! Share them on the Nina flickr page or the Nina Fan Page!

We had a massive burst of holiday cheer around the Dennis household this weekend. Saturday morning the cookie bug bit me! After ten dozen peanut butter blossoms were made I moved onto these delicious-even-in-pictures-caramels. I would highly recommend these not only for taste (they are super yummy) but they look great, you can't mess them up and the are very time and budget sensitive. They are an even better project if you have kids that can help you unwrap all the caramels and put the sprinkles on after you drizzle the melted chocolate.

The other holiday surprise was a call from the furniture company Saturday morning. The baby furniture was delivered Saturday afternoon and I think I've gone in every day since just to make sure it is still real! I am so happy with our decision and love the quality that Twin Locust provides. Jeff and I are super jealous of the baby now! We rounded out our weekend by finishing up our Christmas shopping...now I just have a few handmade projects to finish up!

On another exciting note, if you're a fan of Heather Bailey make sure to check out her new fabric line, Nicey Jane. So feminine, light and vintage. Beautiful designs and colors. If you get the QuiltHome.com newsletter you'll see they have a discount on this brand new line as well as 25% off Amy Buter's Midwest Modern and Midwest Modern 2 lines! Yay for the holidays!

Don't forget tobecome a fan of Nina on Facebook. 2010 will be full of fun stuff and we will be running Facebook only ideas, posts, specials and information.

I know. Too much time between posts.  I don’t come empty handed though!

This is an amazing site a friend at work passed on to me. What does a girl need more than a cute, stylish, multi-tasking dress! The One Dress project put the power of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Flickr to use by connecting over 1000 women who essentially designed this one dress. By sharing their lifestyles, needs and dreams they helped design a dress for any occasion. The knit jersey fabric is perfect for travel and if you wander around on their site you’ll see all the different styles the dress can produce makes this a truly classic dress and well worth the investment!

I have been pretty inspired in the garment area lately. For me, summer time is the hardest time to stay inside and sew but this adorable top and irresistible dress made it onto my to-make-very-soon list! If you’re looking for another quick, restyle project make sure to download the Lace Tank Top from the Free Project Download section of the site!
 

And if you’re in the mood for a road trip check out the workshop my friends at DIY Style are putting on in St. Louis! Fun classes with fun, talented girls!