Last week, I posted a new picture of my wall art above my front door. A friend requested I explain how I did it ;) I have seen a few different methods, so here is how I did it (I do have plans to try method #2 at a later date)!!!
I have now done three wall decals... one for the bathroom (please no comments on "mansees" TW was helping me and I didn't realize the mistake until J kidded me) :)
One above the door...
And one in the girls room... I took pictures of the process for y'all!
1) Supplies: clear contact paper, scissors, tape measure, paint pens (I use the Sharpie brand from the craft store), scotch tape, a cool feather pen that your son made at VBS, a good smelling candle for ambiance, and a big drink. Also, I used my big clear quilting ruler thingy later, but didn't remember to put it in the photo.
2) Have a blank hunk of wall to place your decal.
3) Decide on what you want to say or have pictured. Place this in some sort of document program (I used Word) so you can play around with the size and font. Just keep in mind you will be tracing this, so unless you use a fine tipped pen, try not to get too fancy :) You may need to print a few times to get the size right. It helps to pre-measure your space too... this is the time consuming part, I just wing it most of the time *wink* Print out your final product. Note, you must drink your entire drink within the first 5 minutes of working on this project :)
4) Return to cozy, clean, workspace
5) Cut out strips of contact paper that are wide tall enough to cover your words/picture.
6) Tape (on the very edge) your contact paper (shiny side up) to your word/picture.
7) Trace your word (I chose a brown outline with a very fine tipped paint pen).
8) Color in your word (I used medium tip this time).
9) Repeat... hide papers from children, then scatter them out for the photo at the end. This paint dries pretty quickly, but still...
10) Remove contact paper from print outs. Trace around letters on the paper side of the contact paper. This is not necessary if you have a steady cutting hand... I do it so that when I cut, if I get distracted, I have a line to follow. Cut out words.
11) Repeat for all letters. For my bathroom one, I just cut around the whole paragraph :)
12) Conduct mass calculations. I measured the length of each word, and added 2 inches in between. (which was the distance (approximately) that Word used as spacing). I divided this entire length by 2 to find the center. Then I found the center of my wall space so that everything would be hunky dory.
13) Place words on the wall starting in the center and working out. I use my quilting measure thingy because I can stick the words to the board and do my 2 inch spacing at once. I can also use it to even things out horizontally. Since J had already leveled out the brown stripes in the girls room, I just went 3 inches above that. Above the door, I went 5 inches. The paragraph... well, I had to actually draw lines on the wall to get things level... this is the annoying part. Anyway, you just stick the letters up :)
See... 3 inches above the stripe. I do want you to notice that somewhere the period at the end of the sentence got lost (meaning, I just plain forgot to copy it)... I haven't decided yet if I will add a period when I get around it or call it my "humble square" (my reminder to remain humble and not overly proud of my work) and be done with it. Laziness is leaning towards the later.
So, there it is, my very first how to, or instructable or tutorial or whatever you want to call it :) Enjoy, oh, and if you do something on your own, I would love to see it... I have lots of wall space I need to fill!!!
