my first attempt at a large altered canvas

I've been inspired by all the altered canvasses I've seen lately, and my 20th wedding anniversary is coming up next week, so I thought I'd try my hand at creating one for my hubby.  It started with the small "love" canvas at the bottom left and then it grew (rather like a mushroom!).  For my first attempt, I'm pretty pleased with it.  But I need to go somewhere and learn how to really apply the base coats, 'cause let me tell ya!  My first thought was Distress Stains!  After attempting the small canvas and realizing that the Stains didn't want to "stick" to the canvas, I prowled the art section of Michael's and found gesso.  Slapped on a coat and waited not only the prescribed 24 hours, but three whole days!  (I was busy...) Went to apply the Antique Linen and...well...not so much.  Wiped with a paper towel and tried again thinking it may just need a couple of coats...even dired with the heat gun!  Got a lovely color applied.  Laid on the Tim masks and sprayed a mix of Distress reinker and water.  Pulled up the masks and it was a mess.  The reinker didn't stick (yep I heat gunned it!)  and I wiped it off to discover that all the Distress Stain come off too!  EXCEPT where the masks were!  Okay, weird.  Reapplied the masks, 'cause it did look cool and sprayed with Tattered Angels Glimmer mists.  Oh yeah, that's awesome.  Except in that one place, I'll just fix it...nope.  I should have left it alone, it really didn't look that bad, so giving up on the spray thing, I painted on some brown acrylic paint.  Which immediately reacted with the remaining glimmer mist to become, um, ugly.  Wiped that off and here is the extra weird part...you can still see my original masked clock and gears!  Very strange.  But the brown seeped in some places so if you look closely it looks weathered and worn.  Resprayed the whole canvas with a blue skies Glimmer Mist, heat gunned, then masked and sprayed with sapphire glimmer.  Let it puddle to it's heart's content and walked away.  It was really hard to go eat dinner knowing there was undried mist soaking into the canvas, but I did it.  Came back and it was mostly dry so I helped it along with the heat gun and wow!  I really like the splotchy-ness.  Finally being satisfied with the background, on to create arty goodness.  Sprayed a smaller canvas with tuscan sun glimmer mist (no gesso!) and let it run and be splotchy. 

Inked a grungeboard heart with Fired Brick Distress Stains then top coat of gold Glimmer Mist.  Too much!  Toned down the gold with cranberry zing glimmer mist, more fired brick stain, and vintage photo stain.  Sapphire glimmer on the grungeboard wings, tiny attacher and an ideaology lock, all glued down with glossy accents.  Attached a regular screw eye to the bottom for the key.

The numbers are grungeboard covered in vintage photo distress embossing powder and then vintage photo distress stain.  And of course, there's lots of ideaology gears and a clock face and some corners.  The original canvas has a frame and an ickle bottle filled with hearts.  Sappy maybe, but it's been a great 20 years! 

I'm quite pleased at how it turned out, hope hubby likes it, as it will be going on the wall and he'll have to see it everyday!  Now I'm all fired up to create some more, hey Hels, what's that paint you use?  Traditional Tan or something right?  hehehe!