Grown Up Fingerpainting

Wanna know one of the advantages of it taking a few months for your husband to hang up the completed projects for the patio? In that time, you realize some things clearly are not going to work...and now you have time to create something new before it even gets hung. At least that's what happened to me...
I had created this toilet paper roll starburst thing that I thought would be the perfect addition above our patio buffet. Well, after sitting outside for the last few months, the thing was already falling apart (it probably didn't help that my toddler discovered it). Obviously, it no longer was worthy of hanging on our walls and instead of attempting to repair it, I decided just to ditch it.
Another failed project gave me my inspiration. I had created an ombre canvas creation featuring the quote "It's a sweet, sweet life living by the salty sea" (from a Zac Brown Band song if you're curious), but that thing hadn't quite worked out well either because I didn't layout the stencils well.
I still wanted the quote for our beachy back patio, so I decided to give it another go...this time by doing it a little differently. I am pretty pleased with the new and improved version.

I knew I was going to use contact paper to make my letters (more on that later), but I didn't want them to be bright white when I was done. So, my first step was to give the canvases (I did two) a fun swirly combination of coral, yellow, and white. I was really technical about this (note sarcasm) and basically just smeared the paint everywhere. I used the coral first and pretty much covered the whole canvas with it. But afterwards, I just used the yellow and white in spots and basically just swirled it with my fingers where it seemed appropriate.

While that was drying, I got to work on my contact letters. Because my letters were going to be larger this time, I could no longer use store bought stencils (at least not for a price I was comfortable with). Not a big deal, though...I just used my favorite font, typed them out, printed them out, and then traced them on to contact paper. By the way, you have to trace them on to the paper part of the contact paper which also means you have to do them in reverse so that they're the right way once you go to use them on the canvas.
Once they were all traced and cut out and my canvas has dried, I got to work placing them out on the canvases. One of the advantages of using the contact paper was that I could place them out, move them around, and make sure I liked the layout before removing the paper part and sticking them for good.
And when they were all securely in place, I tapped into my inner child once again for some more fingerpainting...this time in various blue hues. In the end, I really liked the swirly, multi-hued result.
Here it is again in case you already forgot what the final result looked like:

And here's the amazing news...Josh actually managed to get those canvases and everything else hung out there (and even some stuff inside as well), so I should have a grand reveal for you in the next few days...woo hoo!