Cut-Out Canvas Art

       1. [If you want your canvas to be any color but white, paint it now so that it can dry while you create the design template]. Create a diamond template. Mine was 3” across and 4” tall.

2. Trace the diamond onto the BACK of a stretch canvas. Try to be as precise as possible when lining up each diamond so that the spacing is the same between each one.

3. Draw in the cut out pieces onto your template. It will make it easier to distinguish between each line if you use a different colored pen for this step.

4. Cut out the diamond in the center and the 2 corner pieces.

5. [If you’ve painted your canvas, make sure it is dry before continuing.] In each diamond on the canvas, trace the center diamond and the corner pieces with the pen you didn’t use for the original diamond (I did not do this and it made it more difficult to keep track of where to cut.)

6. Repeat for all the diamonds.

7. On the back of the canvas, use your exacto knife and cut out the corner pieces and the center diamond in each larger diamond. This step is probably the most time consuming, but totally worth it!

Flip it over when you’re finished cutting!

Pallett Coasters

Supplies:

A bag of popsicle/craft sticks

hot glue or wood glue (I used wood glue because Walmart was sold out of hot glue guns)

wood stain, a rag, and disposable gloves

scissors

Instructions

1. Cut the ends off of the sticks. I actually did this at the end because I was afraid to cut them at first, but do it first so the stain gets all over it. A good pair of scissors should be able to cut them without any real splintering problems.
   
   
   
2. Put those gloves on and stain the sticks! As much as I didn't want to do it, I ended up staining them one at a time. I dipped the rag in stain and then ran it along the popsicle stick. This let me do both sides at once, even if it meant having to do them one by one.

You should end up with a nice pile of beautiful stained sticks :)

3. Once they are dry place 2 sticks parallel to each other a stick's width apart.

4. Put glue on each stick at about the same distance from one of the edges.
   
   
   Again, I had to use wood glue, but you'll see in the final image that its actually visible when it dries. I would rather have used hot glue.
   
   
   
5. Find 3 sticks that are the same width (or height since they will be standing on their side.) These will be the "cross beams" of your pallet.
   Place one across the 2 sticks laying down on the glue.
   
   
   
   
   You may need to hold it for a second so the glue can hold it up.
   
   
   
   Repeat with the next 2 sticks, one halfway and one at the bottom
   
   
   
   
6. Once those 3 are pretty set, grab 2 more sticks to be glued on top, right above the original 2 sticks laying down.Glue them on by adding the glue to the top of each of the 3 standing up sticks where the 2 new ones will lay.
   
   
   
   
7. Take 6 more sticks and arrange them across the top. Do not glue yet.
   
   
   
   
8. Once you're happy with the spacing, start gluing one stick down by putting the glue across the 3 sticks standing up. Continue this for all 6 sticks until they are glued in placed.
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. Once all of the top sticks are set in place and dried, turn the pallet coaster over to add a few sticks to the back for an authentic pallet look. Repeat the same process that was done on the top. I added only 4 sticks to the bottom to save on sticks and because most pallets do have slats missing.
   
   
   
   
   
10. Once those have dried, flip it back over and you're done!