DIY Dollar Store Halloween Canvas Art

Keep it simple! This DIY dollar store Halloween canvas art is a clever hack that’ll get you in the Halloween spirit in no time!

It’s getting kinda old, ya know?

Look, it used to surprise and shock me when my babes would make awesome crafts and decor from random crap.

It even used to get my dander up – back in the days before I learned to trust her judgement. To hear the things she asked me to do! Yeesh, you’d have to be a card-carrying member of the Howling Quack Society to think of doing some of the things she’s cooked up in her overheated squirrel brain!

But after seeing her success, time and time again…yeah, it no longer has the impact it once had. It’s almost…expected, I guess.

I don’t know, maybe I should get her a fat load of garbage and see if she can turn it into a farmhouse platter or a boho ottoman or something.

Oh, and I don’t mean “garbage” like “let’s go junking and see what cool overlooked treasures we find!” No.

I mean, I’m gonna find the nearest landfill, and go schlepping through hills of rotting banana peels and fish heads so I can fill a contractor bag with stinky, oozing actual garbage, because I think my babes needs a real challenge for a change!

Because I should be amazed at what she thought to do with one of the humblest items at Dollar Tree. An item that no one thinks twice about. An item that’s literal sole purpose in life (besides looking good) is to catch crumbs and spilled drinks!

Who thinks of turning a disposable table cover into wall art fer cryin’ out loud!

Oh, sure, if it was a fancy hand-woven tablecloth made by Yaghan artisans from berry-dyed guanaco fur in the southernmost reaches of Tierra del Fuego then, yeah, mount that sucker on the wall.

But this is a whisper-thin disposable table cover we’re talking about here! It wasn’t made by human hands – it was belched from a great machine somewhere deep in the heart of Guandong Province in China! You don’t make art from it!

You drop orange-frosted cupcakes on it.

You spill Juicy Juice on it.

And then you crumple it up and toss it in the trash!

The nerve of that woman I call “my babes!” What won’t she make me craft with?!?

Hey, wait a minute…

Do you see what she did?

She got me all fired up again about her crafting material choices!

Okay, so maybe I don’t need to fill up a sack of stinking chicken bones and old parmesan rinds, because my old lady can still surprise me! [Old lady, hmmm? Tell me again, which one of us is in his fiftieth year? -Handan]

DIY Dollar Store Halloween Canvas Art Video Tutorial

You may want to watch our short video below for an overview of our Dollar Store Halloween canvas art before you read the detailed step-by-step tutorial.

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DIY Dollar Store Halloween Canvas Art Tutorial

These table covers are big enough to make several of these artistic masterpieces, but we limited ourselves to just one, as that’s all we have room for in our scaled-down Halloween display this year.

The first step was to determine which part of the pattern we wanted to display. Once we had it laid out how we wanted, I trimmed off the excess all around, leaving about 2 inches of overhang all around.

I used Mod Podge to glue the table cover to the canvas.

I started by dipping the brush into the Mod Podge and then brushing the canvas. Handan eyeballed me a for a minute and then greatly eased my job by saying, “my babes, just pour it on the canvas.” Well, that certainly sped things up!

I quickly distributed the glop of glue, making sure to brush the adhesive onto every square centimeter of the canvas.

Next, I laid the table cover onto the canvas. Note: this can be done by one person, but it’s a little easier with two people holding it tight from the four corners and lowering it into place.

I smoothed it all out with my hands.

After smoothing the front, I flipped the canvas, folded the excess flaps over and taped them down. Since these table covers are water-resistant, you can hang it outside, but be advised that you’ll want to upgrade from Scotch tape to something stronger if you plan on doing so.

Not one to miss a good taping opportunity (and seeing I’m all left thumbs when it comes to taping), my babes couldn’t help but jump in and help.

She calls it help, I call it hand shaming. Look at her slender and graceful fingers!

They make my hands look like two Virginia hams festooned with Jimmy Dean sausage links!

After a time, I shooed her away so I could finish up.

But she just couldn’t resist getting those dainty little ladyfingers all up in my business!

And that was all it took to make a versatile, indoor/outdoor work of Halloween art!

Not bad for a lowly table cover, eh?

Though the $5 Dollar Tree Plus version of that owl skeleton seems to be sold out, you can still get a much better-looking one on Amazon!