The Friendship Tree Guestbook

As I have mentioned, I co-hosted a shower for my friend this past weekend. I really wanted to have some sort of gift from the guests. After a bit of internet surfing, I found this cute idea for a fingerprint tree guestbook. I thought it would be a great keepsake for K to hang on her wall to see all the time.

Tools used for this project:

Canvas

Acrylic Paint (Brown, white, Pink)

Permanent Ink

Chalk Ink

Letter Stamps

Rub on Stickers

Paint brush

Pencil

Good White Eraser

It is best to paint the entire back ground of the canvas. I did not, but wish I had. This gives the canvas a more finished look and enables you to go back over pencil marks to cover them up. You can simply use white for this, but any colour will work. The beneifit of using acrylic paints is that once they dry you can paint a light colour over a darker one.

I started with a template I found on google. I searched "tree template" and simply copy and pasted one into a word document. I changed the size to match the canvas I had. I printed and cut it out. I traced around it with a pencil. It looked rough but that is fine.

After I was happy with the outline I painted the tree brown. It took me two coats to give it a dark brown colour. I used the littlest brush and just went slow. Sometimes it is easier to follow to paint brush rather than the pencil lines. This will give you smoother edges and you can erase the pencil later. After the brown had dried I used pink to paint the heart. I practiced quite a few times on another sheet so that I was able to make the heart the perfect size to fit the letters in.

After all the painting was done I used rub on stickers for the birds. They can usually be found at any dollar store. They are much more versatille than stamps or stickers. The only negative is that you need to be careful to only rub the sticker you want. Otherwise you may get the edge of the next one and it can be difficult to remove. Rub-ons are great because they can be used on almost any surface. 

Lastly I used letter stamps to stamp the words I wanted. It is important to measure out your space and plan where you want the letters to go, otherwise you may end up running out of space. I used the permanent ink I had from another project for the words. It dries quickly, so there was less chance of it smearing. On either side of the tree I stamped "Kelsey" and "07 July 12," the bride's name and date of the shower. Underneath I stamped "Showering you with wishes today and forever." I happened to have the words "wishes" and "Forever" with my rub-ons, so I used them instead of stamps. It just gave the picture a bit more dimension.

I made a little instruction sheet and placed it all near the door at the shower. The guests used their fingerprints to make leaves on the trees. For this part I used chalk ink. It takes longer to dry but cleans easier and made a much prettier print. I encouraged the guests to practice on an extra sheet first before doing it directly on the canvas.

Finally, each guest signed their name over their print. It may also be a good idea to spray the whole canvas with acrylic sealer to preserve the colours and protect the canvas.

It ended up working well and was a great keepsake for the bride-to-be.