Weddingbee Blog

Miss Pancakes’s post on doilies couldn’t have come at a better time because I was just about to share my DIY post on the adorable canvas totes, made possible by said doilies.

A few months ago while browsing through the glorious world of blogs, I came across a tutorial for this cute canvas tote:

source

For a beginner DIY’er, the instructions looked simple enough. On a rainy Saturday afternoon, I set out on a trip to Michaels (don’t we all just love that store and the endless coupons?) and returned with some canvas bags, 12-inch doilies, a brush set, spray adhesive, and small bottles of fabric paint AND craft paint.

First order of business—test run on an old canvas bag.

I sprayed the doily with adhesive, stuck it on the bag, and painted over the doily with the silver metallic fabric paint.

End result—major fail.

The doily was practically glued to the canvas bag, and I could not, for the life of me, remove the doily from the bag, leaving residue everywhere. The fabric paint was also really thick and created clumps.

For the second run, I used the craft paint and used Scotch tape to tape the edges of the doily instead, eliminating the adhesive spray altogether.

Result?

Since the canvas bags from Michaels were thicker and of much better quality, I ironed it and taped the doilies down and used the dark gray craft paint.

For the initials, I printed each one out, cut out the letter, and traced over it on the bag. I then carefully painted the outline. Not too shabby for a first time DIYer, would you say?

The bags will be given to the BMs with some gifts for them inside, with hopes that they can reuse them when grocery shopping or running errands.

Did you have any trial and error during your DIY projects? And how did you improvise?