Painted Burlap House Number Canvas

Make your own sentimental Painted Burlap House Number Art!

I have to admit, we have many pictures of O framed in our home. We even have a couple of current family portraits. But I have not done a very good job of putting up older more sentimental photos or objects. I don’t have O’s hospital hat and the little inked newborn footprint card framed. We don’t even have a framed pic from our wedding up anywhere which is just pathetic. I mean, I do have an album, but I just never got it together to pick one and have it printed. But if you’re a fellow fan of the home improvement blog Young House Love like I am, one thing I love that they are always doing is keeping and displaying little sentimental items that remind them of happy things. They have the keys to all of their houses displayed and framed etc. It’s sweet and I wish I were better at that. I like the idea that you have little things in your home that make you stop what you’re doing and remember how you got to where you are in life, you know?

So when I ran across these burlap canvases at the craft store I knew I wanted to do something personal for our family. I settled on displaying the house numbers of the places we’ve lived before now as a reminder to stop and think about our happy history together as a family. And I was glad that when he saw it, Aa immediately knew exactly what it was and it made him smile. I like that’s it turned out to be a cute piece or art but it also has a hidden inside meaning for us.

I wasn’t sure how well freezer paper stenciling would work on burlap but it turned out great which is good news because burlap is SO in right now! I’ve been avoiding it because I don’t like that weird burlap smell. But these canvases really didn’t have that so I was happy.

Painted Burlap House Number Canvas

8 x 10 Burlap Canvas (similar)

Acrylic craft paint and paint brush

Freezer paper, pencil and exacto knife

1. First I laid out my design and drew it on the freezer paper with a pencil. Draw on the matte (not shiny) side. You can either make your design on the computer, print it and trace it, or just draw it yourself.

2. Then I carefully cut out the letters and house shapes with a sharp exacto knife. (I seriously need to join the 21st century and get a Silhouette cutting machine. I mean, come on, me!)

That being said, this really didn’t take me too long. I considered lots of other things for my canvas including the street names where we’ve lived but house numbers won out, not only because they were my favorite but because my other ideas would have taken forever to cut out!

Make sure you save any centers like the holes in the 8 or the 0.

3. Lay your cut stencil on top of your burlap canvas. Don’t forget the little center pieces you saved. Using an iron on medium high heat and no steam, carefully press your stencil. I was worried the heat would warp the canvas board but it didn’t. Just make sure your steam is off and you don’t leave the iron in any once place too long!

4. Then I carefully painted in the stencil with acrylic craft paint. I used a dark charcoal color. When you’re painting a stencil, always use a dabbing motion or brush your paint into the center of the shape AWAY from the edges so you don’t push paint under the edge and get bleeding.

5. When I started this, I had NO idea how stencils would work on burlap. It’s so bumpy and I was fully prepared for it to be a messy disaster. So imagine my surprise when I carefully peeled off the stencil to see this:

Look at that! Sharp clean lines! It could not have worked better!

I carefully peeled off the rest of the stencil and then let it dry and my Painted Burlap House Number Art was done!

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Cassie May

Craft and Knitwear Designer at Little Red Window Design

Welcome to Little Red Window! I’m Cassie, a professional craft and knitwear designer working in the field for more than 10 years. I have a degree in Art History from Northwestern University and a Master's Degree in Architecture and Design from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I've designed more than 300 separate knitting patterns, hundreds of craft projects, and I love to bring joy to your crafts and knitting with well-designed, easy to understand tutorials and patterns.

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