DIY Painted flowers (and sign)

I don't know about you, but I am definitely ready for summer.  Cookouts, boating and fishing, bonfires, family trips, s'mores, everything!  Anyway, I love having a sign by my front door for every season/holiday, and I didn't have one yet for summer.  So...of course I decided to get crafty and make my own!  I had seen on pinterest a way to make painted trees using a q-tip, so I thought I'd try using the technique to paint flowers onto my sign.  Here' the finished product:

And here's how I did it:

You'll need a canvas, acrylic paints, paint brushes, letter stencils, q-tips and paint pen or Sharpie marker.

Start by painting your sign in the background color you like.  I liked yellow because it's nice and cheerful-perfect for sunny summer!  Once your paint dries, you can stencil in your letters.  I stenciled the word SUMMER and wrote the word CELEBRATE freehand.  

For the flowers, you'll need to pick a color in addition to white.

STEP 1: Using the main color first (red in the picture above), dip your q-tip in the paint and make a cross and and X in dots.
STEP 2: Mix your main color with the white, creating a muted tone (pink above), and begin to fill in dots to create a circle.
STEP 3: Using white paint, fill in dots in any empty spaces within the flower.  And there you have it, easy DIY painted flowers to add to any project!

I also tried this same q-tip dot process but made dots with tails to resemble fireworks. 

That might be a cute project to do with the kids for Independence Day! 

I hope you enjoyed this little project for summer flowers!  Happy Monday:)