I’m so stinkin’ excited to show you the DIY I have for you today! I’ve been wanting to make this since December but didn’t get it done until last week. You ready to learn how to paint gingham?

I’ve had this in my mind to make for a couple of months now, but as things go with a family….I didn’t have the time until last week. 

I’ve been wanting to make a large gingham canvas for over my fireplace.

My plan is to use it as the background and layer other things on top for the various seasons and holidays. 

I had no idea how to paint gingham and was a little concerned if I would be able to pull this one off or if I’d need to buy a few canvases to get it right, but I got it right on the first try. Yay!

It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be and it’s another perfect mom craft….do a little work. Leave it to dry and take care of work, family, etc. Then come back and take care of the next step. These are my favorite types of crafts these days because I’m having so much fun adding cute things around my house, getting my craft on and still managing to keep up with feeding those suckers I love and call my kids. ?

How to Paint Gingham

Supplies:

• Canvas (mine is 22″ x 28″)
• Paint – you will need 2 shades of the same color
• Paint – you may want white paint or 1 more color. I didn’t end up using white paint as I thought the canvas color worked fine instead of painting the whole thing white.
• Paintbrush
• Disappearing ink fabric marker (affiliate link)
• T-square (affiliate link)
• Frog Tape (affiliate link)

Step 1: Mark off width of gingham stripes

Use the disappearing ink pen to mark off the width of your gingham. 

Go all the way across the canvas making these marks at the intervals needed for your width.

Mine was 2.5″ wide, so I marked 2.5″, 5″, 7.5″ and 10″ and then started again using the t-square to mark those intervals across the full 28″ of my canvas.

Step 2: Connect the dots

Using the t-square on the edge of your canvas, connect the dots you made using your disappearing ink marker.

Step 3: Tape off every other line

You need to tape off every other section. That way you’ll paint stripes on your canvas.

Make sure you tape off the sides as well.

Step 4: Paint

Paint your stripes. Make sure you paint the ends and sides as well. 

For my canvas, I needed 2 coats of the DecoArt Americana Multi-Surface Pink Cadillac.

Remove tape when the paint is dry.

Step 5: Mark off stripes in opposite direction

Using your disappearing ink pen, mark off your stripes going in the opposite directions from the one you just painted. 

Make sure to only mark with the disappearing ink marker on the canvas, not on the paint.

Step 6: Connect the dots

Once again, use your t-square and connect the dots to make lines for your new stripes.

Step 7: Tape off stripes

Just like the last stripes, tape off every other section. Make sure to tape off the ends as well.

Step 8: Paint

Using the same color paint, paint your stripes.

Allow this paint to dry completely.

Leave this tape on.

Can you see how you can see the original stripe below the tape? Your going to use those as a reference in the next step….to me this is where it gets confusing.

Step 9: Tape off the white stripe or place you haven’t paint

Leave the tape on from the last step and tape off the stripe that has was not painted. 

Be sure to tape the sides and ends.

Step 10: Paint with second, darker color, paint

Paint the remaining squares with your second paint. The darker color paint. 

Mine took 3-4 coats to be as dark and even as I wanted. 

Allow to dry completely.

Step 11: Remove tape

It takes a little patience to remove the tape because it is all layered on top of each other, but it is also super fun!

Voila! Gingham canvas!

As I said, I wanted to put mine above my mantel which the colors pop on the white paint from our makeover a few years ago.

Right now, my mantel is ready for Valentine’s Day, but I plan to use this all year round and change out the layers that I’ll be putting on top of the canvas. 

Have I mentioned how much I love ? my gingham wall art? Yep….I actually hugged it. ?

It’s going to look so good with the various layers I’ve thought of throughout the year! I love the little hurricane lamps up on the mantel. I don’t know why I never tried them up on the mantel before and I had even thought of getting rid of them since that is another old makeover I was getting a little bored with….but put them on the mantel and suddenly they feel new again. 

I still want to work on my Valentine’s decorations a little bit. I love the glittery wine bottles I made a few years ago, but I think I need something else in that same gold and blue to balance things out. 

I swear I squeal with excitement every time I look in my living room and see this gingham wall art! I’m so happy I made it and I can’t wait to start adding the layers….that’s next week!

Have you ever painted gingham? What tips and tricks can you share? Leave me a comment below. Can’t wait to learn some new tricks!