Family Tree Project

I saw something I really wanted to copy on Etsy the other night.  I'm not sure how I ended up there but when I saw it I knew immediately I could do it myself and avoid the $269 price tag!  So I started small on a simple program I like to call PowerPoint (aka the program I use for all things school and craft related).  I think I tend to use this because it is easy to manipulate and I can still use all my fun fonts that I have gotten online.  So anyway, I started with a page the size that I wanted the art to be even though I knew I couldn't print it at home.  The idea was to take it to staples and have them print an engineer print so I wasn't technically concerned with the size at the moment.   

Once I knew what I wanted it to look like I gathered the information about where our grandparents either met, got married, or lived in their lifetimes.  I chose the most interesting places for each of them including the address of the church my grandma and grandpa got married in in Somerset.  It was fun and really interesting to hear some of the places they had been and lived together.  I finished the bottom of the artwork with both sets of our parents and then finally the address of my church where we were married in Lexington and our names.  I loved it!  Now, for the hard part...   

I knew I would need a canvas 16 X 40 inches in order for it to make the impact that I wanted it to make, so I searched online for the size I wanted.  NO ONE had the size I needed at nearby craft stores and the only other one I could find online was over $70!  That was not really my idea of a good deal so I ventured to my basement and found old canvases we used in our apartment in college that were looking for a new purpose (desparately).  Since the canvases were 16 X 20 inches all I needed to do was somehow connect the two and make one big one.  So I found the drill and a couple of screws and attached the two old canvases in the back.  

Once they were connected and secure I took the print that I had made in about TWO minutes for TWO dollars at Staples and cut it to the correct size so I would have enough to staple to the back to secure it like a wrapped canvas.  I used spray glue to adhere it to the canvases and then staples it to the back of the canvases making neat edges like wrapping a present.   

Once the art was secure and dry I used clear acrylic gloss coating to make it shine!  I sprayed it on (being very careful the room was ventilated since I am pregnant) and waited for it to dry.

Here is the final piece of art $2.64 later!  I think I have found a home for it in my kitchen too!  It is a good thing I did not buy the real deal from Etsy.  That would have been wasteful since I have a lot of diapers to buy in my near future.