Easy Fabric Canvas Art with Mod Podge

This fabric canvas art uses fun, patterned fabric for the background. Just add a painted wood cut out to the front for instant wall decor.

Skills Required: None. Even if you’ve never crafted before, you can make this project. You’ll be applying fabric on canvas with decoupage medium, then painting a wood piece and placing it on top.

Hey there! As you may or may not know, I’ve been working on doing some fabric canvas art for my place – inexpensive but cute. I dug through my fabric scraps the other day and found some Denyse Schmidt County Fair fabric.

It turned out there was just enough to cover a 12″ x 16″ canvas, so the wheels started turning. I then looked through my surface bin, and found a wood bird cutout.

Don’t remember when or where I got this particular one, but I’ve seen similar at several craft stores, especially in the seasonal section.

Anyhoo, I completed this canvas project in less than an afternoon. It’s SO easy, even a beginning crafter can do it! Here’s how I made this art with fabric and Mod Podge.

Fabric on Canvas Art

Gather These Supplies

• Canvas, 12″ x 16″
• Mod Podge Gloss (because this is not a heavy wear item and will hang on the wall, you can use this to prepare your fabric too)
• Scrap of fabric to cover canvas
• Wood piece to put on the front
• Acrylic Paint – You’ll obviously want to match your fabric. I used the following:
  • FolkArt Acrylic Paint – Coastal Blue
  • Apple Barrel Acrylic Paint – Wedgewood Green
• Flat paintbrush
• Craft Glue
• Staple Gun or small nails and hammer

The first step of your fabric canvas art is to prepare the fabric. To do this, wash and dry the fabric (do not use fabric softener). Iron and then lay out on a covered work surface. Wax paper is preferable for covering your table.

Using a brush, paint a light coat of Mod Podge onto your fabric. Allow to dry. This will allow you to cut the fabric like paper without frayed edges.

While the Mod Podge on your fabric is drying, paint your wood piece. You will more than likely have to paint several coats – and don’t forget the edges. Don’t worry about the back.

Once the leaves were done, I painted the bird blue. He can be purple if you want. Or a horse of a different color bird, yellow, orange . . . whatever suits you. Set him aside to dry.

Time to decoupage the fabric to the canvas. I used a staple gun, starting on one edge and stretching the fabric across. My method was bottom, top, then sides. The corners of your fabric canvas art are next.

If you don’t have a staple gun, use small finishing nails and a hammer. Just be careful not to tear the fabric.

The corners are special. I made “flower” like corners – tucking the two parts under on each side and then folding down. I hope you can see what I did.

Once I stretched the fabric over the canvas, I gave it another coat of Mod Podge for good measure.

After stretching the canvas, Mr. Bird was sealed with Mod Podge. Again, do the sides but don’t worry about the back.

Use your glue to glue Mr. Bird down onto the center of the canvas. Wait for 24 hours to hang your fabric canvas art on the wall.

One more tip – if you don’t find a wood piece that you like, consider painting something on the front of the fabric using a freezer paper stencil technique or a freehand.

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Now that you’ve seen this fabric canvas art project, you need more DIY wall art ideas, right? Here are some other cool ideas:

• DIY Quote Art on Canvas
• Button Canvas Art
• Embroidery Hoop Wall Art
• Decorate Cardboard Letters
• Mixed Media Canvas