Spring Project -- Make Chevron Subway Art!! {Tutorial}

I have been ooohing and aaaahing over all of the Chevron projects around blogland lately.

It got me motivated to make some Chevron art for my home.

And since the weather here has been so dreary and grey, I was aching for some

happy, sunny art to lift my mood.

And what better song than the Beatle’s “Here Comes The Sun”?

Here's what I did:

So I grabbed another board left over from my Laundry Room Board and Batten project and went to work. I made a stencil on my Silhouette. I think I am addicted to making stencils. They are so easy to make, plus you can use them for other projects.

And I am sure there will be some more Chevron projects coming along soon :)

You can buy the Stencil plastic at your local craft store. I bought mine at Hobby Lobby. They were 3 pieces to a package – so about $1 per sheet.

Pretty cheap for a Chevron Stencil, right?

I painted my board with some white craft paint. And once it was dry I stenciled the board. I was a little nervous about how my stencil was going to turn out. Should I trace the chevron on with pencil and then fill it in later with paint? No, I decided to paint over the stencil using a foam brush, and I am so happy I did that. It worked out incredibly well. I didn’t even have to tape the stencil on to the board. And since my board is longer in width and length than my stencil, I stenciled up one side of the board, and then by the time I came back down to the first section, that part was dry and I was able to blend the paint in and do the other side of the board.

Once the board was finished, I sanded the paint off. I was going for a kind of “Beachy” look and the paint I used was a little too yellow. I liked the color a lot better once the paint was sanded off and toned down. Then I made the words to Beatle's song on the Silhouette “Here Comes the Sun” and I printed that off. I used contact paper – my secret weapon. It’s so much cheaper than vinyl. It is a little tricky to use. You have to make sure that you get the settings right. I keep my depth setting on 2-3 for contact paper because it’s so thin. Then I laid the contact paper on top of the board and used some turquoise craft paint for the words and let that dry. And then I sanded the words too. And put a light coat of polyurethane spray over the whole board.

Of course if you don’t have a Silhouette to make this project.

{You could cut the pennants out with scissors and then use Mod Podge or something like that to make them lay flat. I also sewed a small zig zag stitch all the way around each pennant. And you could use painter's tape to create the Chevron Stripes.}

Then I sewed the pennants to some baker’s twine that I had by folding the back over the twine and sewing it. {You could also hot glue them if you wanted}. And I made a loop at each end of the twine and put them through the point of an upholstery tack.

The last thing I did was I put upholstery tacks along each side of the subway art for a little more added interest. I think they add to the rough beachy charm of the piece!!

{I bought the upholstery tacks at Walmart}