Super Hero in Training - Custom Canvas

I am STILL working on my son's Super Hero room and came across a perfect idea that would fit right next to my son's bed. The idea was great, the cost was way too expensive so I made my own!

From Red Envelope I ran across this canvas which starts at $79. I decided to take one of my 16 x 20 inch canvases (bigger then the $79 finished product) that I purchased for under $5 at Michaels and started from there. Even though the canvas is already white, I decided to add several coats of white paint on it. The paint adds extra texture and I wanted the canvas to have a brush stroke effect where you could see brush strokes when looking at it from different angles. I then added one coat of Modge Podge to give a glossy finish AND to add more texture. This will make it easier to attach the vinyl onto the canvas. I do have a little secret up my sleeve which is the best idea my husband has ever had! It is this!

I know it doesn't look like much, but this is a piece of drywall that my husband cut to fit perfectly inside the back of the canvas. You could use any type of wood or board, we just have tons of extra drywall in our garage so my husband used that. By having this inside the back of the canvas you do not have any sag when applying the vinyl to the front of the canvas. It's now as solid as a hard cover book or a table.

Now that my canvas is painted and prepped to add vinyl, I needed a special logo. I could use Captain America's logo which is what is shown on the Red Envelope site, but I have that sign further down the wall where I want to put this canvas on. I searched the Internet for ideas and found the perfect solution! From The Lady Wolf's blog I found this set of files that had the perfect Super Hero logo for my son! This is the Superman's logo but instead of "S" for Superman, I can replace it with "B" for my son's name. My canvas now looks like this!

The 2 red lines are just markers as I layered my image prior to putting it on the canvas. I also need the markers to line up the text on the bottom half of the canvas. I now followed the same theme as Red Envelope for the bottom half of the canvas. I used red and blue for the bottom half as that is also the same colors for Superman.

The picture above shows the bottom half lined up by using the markers and taped on. After taking the transfer tape off and removing the temporary markers, we have the finished product.

At this point, all I did was add one more layer of Modge Podge to secure the vinyl on the canvas. I also did this because I used glossy vinyl for the red but the blue and the yellow had a matte finish. After using Modge Podge, the entire canvas now has a glossy finish. Here is the canvas in my son's Super Hero room!

Excuse the top of my son's head in the picture, I was tucking him in for bed and didn't see he made it in the shot! But...for literally pennies on the dollar I love how my son's new canvas turned out! And if you like Super Heroes then please check out the rest of the blogs in October as nearly all of them are about Super Heroes!