Painted Canvas Valentine's Day Placemat

This simple Valentine's Day placemat is a great project for any style dinner table. The canvas lends itself well to almost any Valentine's Day inspired design you might want to paint on it. The best part of this simple craft project that is the more painted Valentine's Day placemats you make, the less each one will cost you.

You can buy pre primed canvas by the yard at almost any fabric store or art supply store. The paints, polyurethane, and primer go a long way as well!

To Make a Painted Canvas Valentine's Day Placemat You will need:

1 Yards oft Per primed Canvas

Acrylic paints

Polyurethane

Paint Brushes

Pencil

Painter's Tape

Duct Tape or No Sew

Start by cutting your Valentine's Day place mat out to size. I cut mine 14 inches by 20 inches. This is a little bit bigger than a normal dinner table place mat, but I wanted to be able to see it even when my everyday dishes were on it.

Fold in your rough edges about 1 inch towards the back of the mat. You can simply duct tape these down since no one will see the underside of your painted canvas Valentine's Day dinner mat. If you prefer though you can use a product like no sew. When you iron down the edges though, make sure you place a rag between the primed canvas and your iron. The primer will melt and burn. It will also ruin your iron. You could also use fabric glue to hem the edge to even simply sew it down with a sewing machine.

Now, time to personalize your Valentine's Day dinner mat.

I like to use painters tape to tape off a two-inch border along the outside edges of the mat. Then in the middle you can paint a Valentine's Day heart, flowers, and other designs. This is the time to get creative!

Once your paint has dried you need to apply a few coats of polyurethane to the painted canvas Valentine's Day dinner place mat. I recommend applying three coats following the instructions on your polyurethane.

Once the polyurethane has dried you can add embellishments to really personalize this craft project. Beading, faux gemstones, and almost any little bobble you can find at the arts and craft store will work. Just remember you will need to clean this, so stay away from anything that cannot get wet.