DIY Canvas Quote Art for the Bathroom

Whenever we found out that we were having a boy, I immediately had this urge to redecorate the bathroom that will be his bathroom. Yes, I realize he won't be spending too much time in there for awhile, but for some reason I needed it to feel like a little boy's bathroom - without actually feeling like a little boy's bathroom. I've said it a million times: I'm just not that into overly babyish/ kiddish rooms. I want us to be able to go in his bedroom or bathroom and not feel like we're visiting a daycare. So basically my plan was to make the bathroom a little more masculine and add some kid-friendly details. This bathroom is NOWHERE near finished, but we have started making some changes. Here is the bathroom as it was before:

It's a pretty basic bathroom with a tub & shower, and a big awesome closet behind the door. Luckily, it was already painted navy blue - which was perfect for making it fit for a little boy. After buying a shower curtain that I had been eyeing at Target for a few weeks, we decided that the room needed some art. I had seen a lot of projects I loved on Pinterest and Etsy that were basically quotes painted on a canvas in a funky way and decided that would be a good addition to this room.

We decided to go for a VERY subtle ocean theme in here because we have a framed print we bought in Maui several years ago on the wall across from the toilet, and basically I refuse to take it down. I love that print and I especially love it against the navy wall. This is the print:

 

This picture doesn't really do it justice, but it is big and colorful and I just love it. So this is the reason for our subtle ocean theme. Since I loved the quote idea, we spent the next few days trying to think of a good quote that relates to the ocean that would make sense on the other wall. Since Ryan is a big music guy, he listened to a lot of songs at work that he thought might fit until we finally decided on a portion of the song Swallowed in the Sea by Coldplay. Ryan is a much bigger fan of Coldplay than I am, but this is by far my favorite Coldplay song. And I think the words of the song kind of work for a child since it's about an enormous love for a person that can't be contained.  

I didn't use any tutorials or anything for this one, I just decided to kind of wing it based on images in my head. The supplies I used were: a large canvas, 6 packs of letter stickers and a bunch of various acrylic paints. The cost was around $25 for everything. 

The hardest part is figuring how how many letters you will need. Technically, you could write out the quote and count, but that wasn't happening for me. I did end up running out of the letter E but I was able to make it work.

The next step is writing out the quote with the stickers on the canvas. You could line it all up and make it neat but I wanted a finished product that looked a little more imperfect, so I just eyeballed it as I went. Mine looked like this:

As you can see, there are some Es missing in the last 3 lines. Instead of going to buy more letters, I just painted the top of the canvas first and when it dried, I peeled off the Es and put them down below where they were needed and then painted over the bottom half. This is the part where I forgot to take a picture, but basically I just used 6 colors of paint, and painted in a slight circle pattern over the letters with a cut up kitchen sponge. It's also important to remember to paint the sides of the canvas, since they will be visible when this is hung on a wall. Once everything was dry, I slowly peeled the letters off, and this was my finished product:

 And here it is with his shower curtain:

 

I have to say, I'm pretty obsessed with how it turned out. I love how it is kind of unfinished/imperfect looking and how all the letters have a rough edge. I also love how it ended up matching his shower curtain really well. As long as Coldplay doesn't sue us, I think this is a DIY piece that we will keep for a very long time! :)