Have you ever thought of applying decals to canvas but thought they wouldn’t stick on well? You may be right, but here are a few tips to make it easier. Bear in mind that I don’t have a Cricut (yet), so all this is based on decals I have ordered.
The easiest way is to use a heat-sensitive decal. These can be applied to any surface, including canvas, and you use heat (basically, a hair dryer) to keep them in place. Here are examples of two that I did for my office.
These are big pictures (16 x 20), and I would definitely recommend using this method for anything that large. This past summer, though, I was visiting friends and wanted to make them gifts with sayings that meant something to each of them. I couldn’t find anything that said exactly what I wanted, so I decided to custom order decals and affix them to 12×12 canvases. However…when the decals came, they weren’t the heat-sensitive ones…I honestly didn’t even think of it! I did a little research and a little trial and error, and I understand they’re holding up just fine!
First, put a layer of white paint over the whole canvas. The paint will be the first step in evening out the texture of the canvas. Note that all the painting is with regular “craft paint” – you won’t need anything that you can’t find at any crafts store.
Next, if you want a background picture, this is the time to paint it on. In this case, I painted ivory hearts on the canvas (I used a stencil to do the big single heart, but did the smaller ones freehand because I didn’t want them to be exactly symmetrical).
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When the paint dries, go over the whole thing with Mod Podge. This dries clear but creates a nice smooth surface for your decals. Here’s one of them with a nice wet coat of Mod Podge.
Next comes the fun part (#sarcasm) – time to apply the decals! If you use a long saying in a complicated font, this will be a little tricky (hmmm…how would I know that), but go slowly and be patient. Make sure your decals are really stuck well to the canvas before the next step! Because once your decals are in place and stuck to the canvas, you’re going back to our old friend Mod Podge for one more coat. Be very careful when applying the Mod Podge that your brush doesn’t catch any of the letters and pull them up – if that happens, just take a toothpick (or your fingernail) and gently re-stick the decal to the canvas.
Here are the finished products and now you can see how I know that a long saying in a complicated font is do-able – it just takes patience!
Hope this has inspired you to try decals on canvas! If you’ve tried it and have any other tips, please share!
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