General Conference+ A Lyric Canvas

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints {Mormons} One of my favorite times of the year is when we have General Conference-- especially in the fall- 

Cuddling up with a warm blanket, finding a craft to keep my hands busy, and getting to listen to the prophet and have the warm comforting spirit wash over me is a wonderful gift and treasure, and something I thoroughly look forward to.

 Part of one of our little traditions that we do is we like to pitch our tent in our living room for General Conference than we read the account of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon (Mosiah chapter 2) 

{ In the story- they all gathered around and pitched the doors of their tents towards the temple to hear King Benjamin speak to them in the morning}

 Our kids look forward to it each time and enjoy doing it and getting to listen to Conference in the tent is always a fun adventure to them.

The girls lately have been obsessed over my little pony and of course played with those most the day

 Payton wanted to learn how to crochet a scarf-- Between me and Dave we managed to teach him how to crochet a chain :) He was getting it down pretty good but a scarf was a  bit of a big project for him-- {looks like I have some work ahead of me for Christmas :) }

 The main thing I did while I watched Conference this year was work on a 

Lyric Collage Canvas {pain in my butt, torturous, my hand still hurts} Project- 

I actually started it a month ago too- but fast lost all motivation for it and I figured I really needed to finish it.

In all reality It's been years in the making........ I saw this picture when we first moved to Colorado and desperately wanted one like it I actually bought the canvas for it in Colorado {so 2yrs ago now :) } and no I couldn't afford a canvas as big as the original- holy huge-

source

I could never quite figure out the best way to do it {how do you get a print that big? Vinyl would be just as much of a pain and I want it to have a distressed handwritten look, Cutting out the letters would be torturous to.} So I ended up just doing the simple cheap way.... print, chalk, tracing the letters and than filling them out with permanent marker.

I had a miserable time trying to find just the one song that I liked the best so instead I took lyrics from all of me and Dave's "songs" {The one's we've teased each other with or sung together, or he's linked me to to tell me that he loves me :) ya those ones and even than just a few of them- it was hard to narrow it down}

Anyways I just measured my Canvas made a document file in Illustrator with the Lyrics and how I wanted it to look-- I'm sure you could do it in photoshop or any program you can save to an .jpg file later

Loaded it into Block Posters and than printed it.

I taped them together-- Rubbed Chalk on the back of all of it- mainly cuz it would have taken even time to use pencil- and than taped it onto the canvas and went to town tracing it all out.

And I ain't kidding when I say FOREVER LATER{7+hours} I finally had it all traced and done and outlined with a silver sharpie marker. FOREVER LATER and with blisters on my fingers and extreme cramping in my hand-- but thankfully it is Done-- well done until I decide I want to add a bit more distressing to it which was in the plan but really I am burned out with this project-- it was lucky I didn't just burn it  instead :)

I got to admit I love it as much as I originally thought I would  though :) 

It always makes me smile to read it and look at it, and it fits just right in our bedroom :) a little intimate personal touch and just enough to show some of our Love.

Would I do it again-- heck no-- but I sure am going to enjoy the one I did :)