Trash to Treasure: Fall Art Piece and Vignette

I Love Fall!

This didn't really start out as trash, but as a truly questionable find on the clearance aisle at Hobby Lobby.

It was a decoupaged piece originally priced at $70, which could be classified under "Are you kidding me?"  (And, if you did purchase it at the original price, I sincerely apologize).  $7 was way more reasonable and a perfect price for something I was going to remake.

My plan for this big canvas/board (22 x 22) was to create a statement piece to center the fall arrangement on top of our book case.  I had seen several pretty printables on  Ella Claire's beautiful blog.

Go check out all the pretties!

This one, from Rooms for Rent, was one that I thought would work for this piece.

Here's how I turned something "horrible" (#seewhatididthere) into a pretty piece of art.  I took the canvas, which is really a board with a print decoupaged to it, and rolled several light layers of creamy white trim paint on it.  I left a thin black border and since the art piece is essentially a box, it doesn't need to be framed.  The paint was the same kind I used on my state silhouette pumpkin and covered very nicely.

One or two coats in--I can still see Hagar!

A few coats more--a clean slate!

Now, we were ready for our fall printable.  I printed this out on a regular piece of copy paper:

and shaded the back of it with a pencil.  You could enlarge it on your computer before printing, but I wanted to keep it smaller because I planned to place objects in front of the board and didn't want to cover up the words.  

I lightly taped the paper, shaded side down, to my clean surface and outlined the letters and arrows in pencil.  When I peeled it up, the lettering was there on the painted board.  The outlines of the letters and arrows were faint, but easily readable.  I took a gold paint pen and went over the pencil lines and filled it in.  A ruler helped a lot in making sure everything stayed straight.  This was by far one of the easiest little craft projects I've done in a while.  It makes a big statement and only cost $7 plus a gold paint pen and some white paint that I had on hand.  Around $10 to make a big piece that I can use for 2-3 months in my house--Yes, Ma'am!  And if I ever want to change it?  Just paint over the letters and arrows and voila--another clean slate for a new project.

What are some of your favorite trash/clearance aisle to treasure projects?  

Are you a clearance aisle stalker like me?

I'm linking up again to Home Stories A to Z's Tuesday Tutorials & Tips Linky Party.  

Join us over there for all the fun!

Tons of Great Fall Crafts and Recipes!