DIY Lighted Christmas Art

Updated 11.19.21

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This Lighted Christmas Art came out so beautiful. This is actually something Hubby and I created together.

Here is a list of the items you will need to complete this project.

Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Favorite Paint Brush
Thin detail paint brush
Mini Light Set 20 Clear Bulbs
Chalk

You’ll want to make sure you protect your work surface.

So, as you can see, Hubs is getting ready to get started painting. When working with acrylics, you need to realize that the paint dries very fast on canvas. It helps to water down the paint, but it becomes more like a watercolor. You can layer the paint to increase the depth of color.

He started with yellow and then added a layer of orange. Make sure you paint the edges of your canvas, it will look a lot better!

Next, he flipped the canvas around and added a layer of blue and then finished the rest of the canvas with black. The black area will be the night sky.

Then, he want to flipped the canvas back around to add mountains. The mountains are basically two bumps with a bit of shadowing. By using gray and white paint, you can see the details of each mountain.

I specifically wanted the mountains a certain height, because I planned on putting my nativity scene in front of it.

Hubby added a little more yellow and red in the sunset part of the scene. It’s pretty easy to add touches here and there to make it your own.

We wanted to add the ‘O Come Let Us Adore Him’ to the sky.

I printed off the words with my computer. You can use whatever font you like, rub the back of the words with white chalk, then trace the letters onto the canvas. It works perfect!

Then I painted the tracings with white paint. Love, love, love the way it came out.

We wanted the stars to light up and shine, so we poked a hole in the center of each star. Some holes are larger or smaller depending on the size of the star.

For the Star of Bethlehem, Hubby rigged it so that an actual light poked through the canvas. It looks so cool! Here’s a close up photo.

I ended up having to paint the back of the canvas black as well, just where the lights were. If you don’t the lights will just illuminate the back and light won’t come through the holes.

Here’s what the back looks like. Hubby attached the cardboard to the edges to work as a guide for the lights. The one light that poked through the North Star needed a base to support it. It’s just taped on.

It ended up being necessary to block off the entire lighted area, so that no light could escape, otherwise the lights just lit up the back of the wall.

We used poster board and tape. Not quite sure why that hole is there… I’m thinking we needed to adjust the light that poked through.