I just love old churches. During the years as my family was vacationing, if we found an old church we had to stop and take a picture. I have a lot of pictures of old churches from all over the state of Texas.

I started with an 8” x 10” white canvas panel (thinner than a stretched canvas). I painted the top 2/3rds with different shades of blue and white for the sky. The bottom 1/3rd of the canvas is painted with several shades of greens for the grass.

While the canvas was drying, I painted a sheet of hymnal/book paper with watered down brown acrylic paint. Since we are putting Mod Podge on top of the church, it’s best to use acrylic paint. You can use watercolor paints but the Mod Podge might reactivate the watercolor paint.

Use another piece of the hymnal/book paper, and make small random dots of color with acrylic paint for the stained glass windows. Remember….”a little dab will do ya!” You don’t have to cover the entire page…just enough for your windows.

Let’s Paint The Walkway And Bushes

Measure the width of your church door. Decide where you want your church door to go on your church and this is where the sidewalk needs to go.

To paint the sidewalk, use shades of gray and a bit of white (or just mix white with a little bit of black). After this is dry, it’s time to paint the bushes and the flower greenery along the sidewalk. Take 6 - 7 cotton swabs and secure them together with a rubber band or washi tape. I added several shades of green and yellow to my palette, dipped the cotton swabs into the paint and began to pounce until I had everything the way that I wanted it. Be sure and twist the cotton swap (paint brush) to vary the colors.

I used 3-4 cotton swabs the same way to make the greenery along side the sidewalk.

Let’s Add the Church!

The first piece to glue down is the main body of the church. Before adding the rooftop, go ahead and glue the steeple part of the church. Add the cross to the top of the steeple and then add the two roof pieces of the church.

All that’s left of the church, is to add the windows and the door. (Remember the little song from Sunday School….”Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the door and here’s all the people”! Sorry! Too many years as a children’s choir director at church!

Adding The Finishing Touches!

I used a kabob skewer to make the dots for my flowers. You can also use the end of a paintbrush handle or even a cotton swap. You can make your flowers any color that you want or leave them off altogether!

You can either print out a hymn title or scripture from your computer to cut out and add to your canvas. You can always use a fine paintbrush or a maker to hand letter your title.

After everything is dry, I covered the entire canvas with a layer of Mod Podge to seal everything.

I used the Crop-A-Dile heavy Duty Hole Puncher to punch holes into the top of the canvas and inserted jute twine, tied knots on the ends in front to make a hanger.

Church Kits Available!

Each kit will include an 8” x 10” stretched canvas instead of a canvas board. I’m also including materials for a wood bead hanger.