Buck Head Wall Art



I covet animal busts. But with price tags for the real kind in the hundreds of dollars, I realize
I'm not going to get one any time soon.

However, I recently read a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Amy at Buffalo Roam HERE. She printed out animal silhouettes, and painted them on cork board for her little guys room. Brilliant idea!

Amy's idea gave me a plan for using a silhouette of an animal head in my home. Not to mention, this was such an easy and fun project, I just wanted to do it!

The Buck Head is free to print out HERE. Or, if you're looking for different silhouettes,
just look for free graphics on Pinterest or Google. There are TONS.

I liked this buck silhouette that Amy linked, so, I printed it out.  I wanted a larger silhouette, but my printer wouldn't allow me to print a larger copy over several pages, so I took the small print and had it blown up at Staples. (The cost was .18 cents!).

I then cut it out, and traced it on a large (24" x 18") canvas.

Easy.

And super fun.

I filled in the traced head with black acrylic paint. I toyed with the idea of making him sparkly, but I'm trying to cut down on glitter...

(Painting is not shown - but in my defense - I got side-tracked because

I brewed pot of coffee, but forgot the coffee. Aaaaargh!)

While waiting for the paint to dry, I sulked a little about the coffee.  Meanwhile, I had the idea to cover the whole canvas with burlap. I checked with Big A, who can be somewhat suspicious of my (sometimes) impulsive ideas, and he actually liked this one! Woot woot!

To keep the burlap in place, I used the staple gun, and stapled the burlap in just four places. I then used hot glue on the back side of the canvas, and glued it all around.

At this point, because I was caffeine deficient, I thought it would be a good idea to use my bare fingers to press the burlap into the hot glue! Umm OW. (I suggest you skip this step, and use something besides your fingers - like an old knife.)

Anyway, it all worked out in the end!

I got a cool new deer head to hang on my wall.

Big A made me another pot of coffee, with coffee in it.

And, my fingers, well, they'll heal.

To hang, I broke a soda tab off of and empty soda and glued it to the center top of the back of the frame.  (Like THIS, only I used glue to attach it to the frame). The canvas is so light you could just use a finishing nail to hang it.

Notes:

•  I notice that there is a strip of the burlap across the deer nose that looks a little darker, or more dense. It's less noticeable in real life, but, I may have to re-do the burlap if my OCD takes over.
• I loved this so much I made one for my sister.
• There is some debate over whether this is a buck or a moose. The free graphic said it was a deer, but my kids say moose. What do you think?