A few weeks back, I went to a craft fair/farmers market and came across a booth that sold framed burlap prints. They had sayings and maps and all sorts of cute designs and I loved the contrast between the rustic burlap and the sleek frames. Since I already had burlap on the brain thanks to the table runner project that I had planned, I decided to pick up some extra fabric at the store and see if I could whip up a little burlap art as well.

I mulled it over a little and was leaning towards using stencils as a guide for the designs, but my mom pointed out that stencils might be tough if I was planning on more than a letter or two. Since that was my exactly my plan, stencils were out for the moment. Then it occurred to me that since burlap is sort of see through, I might be able to have something behind it and trace the design onto the fabric instead. I messed around with different fonts and sizes in Word and then printed out my template.

I cut some burlap to size and then taped the corners to prevent it from unraveling any more…

and then I taped the burlap to the template and then taped the whole thing to a cutting board to have a solid (but moveable) surface.

Then I got to tracin’. Now you should know that I have approximately negative artistic skill so I didn’t have super high hopes for this method. And I can read your minds: “But it’s just tracing!” That doesn’t matter. Zero artistic skill. But I traced the letters with a sharpie and was surprised at how easy it was to recreate the template.

After I had filled in all of the letters with the sharpie and tossed the whole thing in a frame, I wasn’t 100% satisfied with how it looked – the letters were still a little light for my liking. I had picked up some black acrylic craft paint at the fabric store in case the sharpie didn’t work out, so I busted that out and used a small angled paint brush to go over the letters again.

Success! Everything stood out a lot more and the design really popped next to the white mat in the frame.

I did a couple of practice prints and then put together this one for my sister and brother-in-law.

I’ve got big plans for different designs so – spoiler alert, friends and family – some burlap art is probably in your future. Start practicing your ‘surprised’ face now.