DIY Canvas Art & My Favorite Hot Chocolate

I bought a 8”x10” size plain canvas twin pack quite a while ago and they’ve just been sitting on my desk for the longest time. I love doing (trying my best to do) our own art to decorate the house with because it’s more personal and usually always has a story behind it, but I’m very limited with my artistic abilities and never know what to do. Which is why they sat there for months before I actually got around to it. We’ve been in our new house since September and I haven’t really hung very many things on the walls until this week because I was still trying to figure the designs out and how I wanted everything. Now that all of the higher priority items are done, I finally moved on to wall art.

These were a little on the smaller side and I had a couple other small wall art in my beauty room, so I used those as inspiration and created a cluster. The first item I already had was a gold “C” I got as a gift years ago and the second was a canvas I bought from Icing last summer that says “Beach Please.” Usually I don’t go for the nautical themed designs, but this was just too cute not to do! And with just the right amount of sass ;)
I used some of the same items I mentioned in my Fall DIY Home Decor post. The pale yellow paint is Vanilla Ice Cream made by Apple Barrel. The pink I used on the canvas is actually a mixture of Americana’s Dragon Fruit and Apple Barrel’s Cameo Pink. The Super Tacky glue is made by Nicole and the gold glitter is by Creatology. I’m okay with the way this turned out, and it’s definitely a great example of how I’m lacking in the art department. I wanted more of a better, even gradient of glitter from the bottom to the top and the letters are a little imperfect. But it’s the imperfect things that make it so special, right?!
This one turned out much better! But really, how could I have messed up? I just painted the whole thing with the color Acapulco from Apple Barrel and printed out an anchor stencil, traced it, and painted it with Martha Stewart’s Beetle Black. I thought about adding glitter to this one too or some white polka dots, but once I hung it on the wall to get a better look at everything together I decided to leave it just how it was.
This is what they all look like on the wall. I realize in this photo the “C” isn’t completely even with the rest, but it’s okay because I have something on the left side of the two blue pictures that balances everything out. I think it would’ve also looked good to have painted the anchor white to match the writing in the picture above it. Either way, I really liked how it turned out and it was something fun to do in my spare time. It's such a satisfying feeling to see even more things coming together as I continue decorating.

Moving on to something completely different, I was making hot chocolate last night and figured I’d take pictures to share with you what I do. I like this much better than just using the pre-made packets and it’s not as much work as making it on the stove. I love this recipe and made it for my sister a couple weeks ago and hers was gone in what seemed like three sips! All you need is cocoa powder, white sugar, salt, 1 cup of milk, and vanilla. Now let’s get started!
Mix 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder and 2 tablespoons of white sugar in your mug along with a dash of salt. Then you’ll have what looks like the packaged mix. This part is a little different, but bare with me. I’m not all fancy, so I don’t know the exact reasoning for this. I just know that the finished product is delicious! Take 2 tablespoons of the milk and stir it in with the powdered ingredients. It’ll look like you’re making a brownie in a mug, but try to resist! Once all the dry ingredients are wet (like in the picture below), stir in the rest of the milk and put it in the microwave for 1 minute.
You’ll see in the below picture that when you take it out, it’ll have a filmy-foam texture on top and that’s fine. Just add ¼ teaspoon of vanilla, stir it together so it's nice and smooth again, and put it back in the microwave for another 30 seconds. I use the time that it’s in the microwave to put away all of the ingredients so there’s nothing to clean up afterwards.
Now that it’s done, you can add whatever you want on top but I was just a Plain Jane and left it how it was, and loved every little sip. Super easy and simple, just like I said and it only takes a little bit extra effort than using a pre-packaged mix. It’s supposed to be getting a little chilly here the rest of this week and this weekend, so hot chocolate will definitely be a necessity!
Let me know your favorite DIY canvas art and hot chocolate recipes in the comments. I hope everyone has a fabulous day!

~Christina~


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