(iCandy & tutorial) copy-cat State Print

I've been coveting one of these "I Love California" state prints that I saw here at {q.a.)design BUT, I thought I'd prefer to try to make my own with stuff that I had on hand, and since I'm completely Photoshop illiterate, I had to make it manually.  I thought I'd share how I made it, with a little magic trick on how to paint completely straight lines with no seeping through the tape.

here's the tut:

So, I had a 12 x 18 canvas that I drew lines and drew lines and drew lines again trying to put them exactly in the right spot...sheesh.  {can you see all my eraser marks?  good grief!}

It ended up being 1 inch border on the top and bottom and then 2 inch stripes for the rest!

and then because I'm a total airhead, I marked which ones were supposed to be painted my color, and left the white ones blank.  I wanted the two border stripes to be color!

I taped it off with painters tape.

Then, using my free true turquoise paint from Glidden, I painted the stripes,

 But, when you take the tape off, the lines aren't completely straight because of the painting seeping under the painters tape.  It's happened on our painted walls on occasion.

But now for the magic trick, that gives you perfectly straight lines...Painters Caulk.  Have you heard of it?  

They have it at Home Depot, and it's amazing.  

So, after my turquoise paint dried, I re-taped the canvas to cover up the turquoise {in order to paint the white stripes}I did leave a little bit of turquoise sticking out, because I wanted to cover up those irregular seepage lines.  I squirted a teeny-tiny bit of painter's caulk on my finger, and with another finger, lightly rubbed the canvas along the tape lines...making sure to leave it smooth.  Here's the pic:

 After the caulk dried, I could paint right over it with my white paint.  And when that dried...I took off the paint and VoiLa!  perfectly straight lines!  {sigh.}

 pretty!

 I used the 50 States Cricut cartridge to cut a 10 inch Cali and mod-podged it into place...

 and then stuck an itty-bitty heart over HB and re-mod-podged.

 we love california!
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