Repurposing on Purpose: "M" is for......

I found this hideously painted "M" at Bargain Boutique for a whopping $.50 and just had to have it. I wasn't sure what I would do with an M, but I liked the font of it. My maiden name starts with an M, so maybe that was why I was drawn to it. And then it hit me.... I'll make it for my brother! His last name still starts with an M!!!! Plus I knew my sister in law would love getting a treat, who doesn't? Right??? So this is what it looked like before I started repurposing it.

I didn't take pictures of the process I went through to get it how I wanted it, but it basically went like this: I spray painted it black and when it dried I realized you could see the raised polka dots. I sanded those down and while doing that I kind of liked the gold that was showing through. I thought it would look good with the gold and some red too, so I spray painted it Colonial Red mainly covering the edges. When that dried, I spray painted a coat of black again. After it completely dried, I sanded it to distress it. I loved how it looked, but thought it was a little plain. So I decided I would attach it to a canvas. When I went to the Dollar Tree in the Tower District the other day they had these canvases that weren't all that great to look at. But for $1 each, they are much cheaper than you can get from Joann's or Michaels (even on sale)! So I stocked up on them. Here is a picture of the supplies I used.

I painted the edging of the canvas with my Espresso craft paint. Cut my scrapbook paper to cover the canvas and inked the edges to give it more of a vintage/distressed look. Inking is super easy. You just run your ink pad along the edge of the paper until you get the look you want, there is seriously no way to do this wrong. I attached the paper to the canvas with plain craft glue. No Mod Podge this time since I was leaving the front of the scrapbook paper plain. I didn't want to even bother getting it out so instead I poured some glue on the canvas and spread it all out with my finger until it was evenly and completely covered... attached the paper and smoothed that out and that was it. After that dried, I tied a brown ribbon around the "M" and attached it to the canvas with hot glue. I thought it turned out pretty cute. Here are some pictures of it at my house and then at its final destination.