My recent trip to Portland inspired me to make a craft worth the great city. I picked up this inexpensive natural colored tote at Joann’s, and my first instinct was to “put a bird on it” but that was too obvious. Instead I decided to take a cue from nature (and my current obsession with faux taxidermy) and put a deer on it! Maybe I can start a new trend on Portlandia.

MATERIALS

• Medium natural cotton canvas tote
• Multi-surface craft or fabric paint
• Paint brush
• Deer template
• 1 – 8.5″ x 11″ piece of cover stock
• Xyron, or light spray mount
• Scissors, x-acto knife, or a Cameo Silhouette

INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1:

First print out the deer template on the cover weight stock. Either cut with an x-acto knife, or cheat like I did and print it out using your Cameo Silhouette!!

I ran my stencil through my Xyron to give it some tack on the backside. If you don’t have a Xyron, you could spray some light Spray Mount on the backside.

Step 2:

Trim close to the stencil and position your stencil on the bag where you want it.

Step 3:

Choose what color of paint you’d like to use and begin to dab the paint on at a 90 degree angle. This helps the paint not to creep under the edges of the stencil.

Step 4:

Carefully pull off the stencil and fix up any rough edges with paint. Let it dry for a few hours, and then fill it up with your craft goodies and go!