Good morning one and all I hope I find you well, Virginia here with an idea for personalising your home.
I've always adored putting my own personal thumb print on our home to make it ours. Our last home was quite literally covered in one off paintings onto the wall surfaces (me and my hubby got somewhat obsessed). However, when we came to sell the house it was more like a tourist attraction than a place for any perspective buyers. So the individual paintings were painted over and we emulsioned the world. But that's the joy of something like this - it doesn't actually have to be permanent.
A few weeks ago I discussed with hubby that we hadn't personalised our current home in the same way (at all), I think maybe because we laboured over the last one so much. But as we have no intention of moving any time soon I suggested maybe we could do something?
Anyway I've noticed lots of decals and vinyls that you can buy for the wall, which is great but if I'm honest I like things personal, I don't want a statement that is necessarily easy to buy in the local DIY store. I got to thinking and before I knew it I'd come up with a plan - I wanted a quote, a mantra, a statement on a piece of wall which sits above where I sit and craft.
I played with publisher which thankfully will allow you to put a word art box together that goes beyond a normal A4 page, in order to get the dimensions right we measured the space we had for the quote, we then worked out how many letters and spaces (don't forget the spaces) to ensure we were printing the right size. which was a good job because I'd picked a curvy font for the statement. We then set to printing a bit of the quote and then moving the word art box along and printing the next bit. However, if you don't have publisher and perhaps only have access to word or similar I would suggest picking a font which is quite uniform in height and then just print the individual letters onto A4 paper.
Once printed we stuck the quote together with tape (tape the front as you'll need the back). Then we used a very soft pencil and rubbed it along the letter on the back of the letters. We stuck the quote to the wall with blue tack and then went over the letters with a hard pencil. The pencil presses down and puts the letters on the wall behind because of the soft pencilling you've done on the back. Once completed carefully removed and then go over with a pencil any areas where it's not as clear as it should be.
Once done, set to with your paint choice (obviously as it's your personal art you can choose any colour you want) and paint, the therapy of painting and seeing something come to life really is quite magical!
Hope this has inspired you to create something uniquely yours!
Super painting Virginia - it is gorgeous and a great mantra :)
Posted by: Katherine | June 21, 2013 at 07:50 AM
this looks brilliant V!
Posted by: Sarah | June 21, 2013 at 11:58 AM
Love it! And wow what a steady hand while up a ladder.
And what's that to the right, where hub is up thre with his spirit level? Looks interesting.
x
Posted by: Eleanor | June 21, 2013 at 01:27 PM
Oh Virginia it's gorgeous and such a good mantra. you must have such a steady hand! Will we be seeing lots of tattooed walls now?
Posted by: Carmen | June 21, 2013 at 01:50 PM
Well done - I feel like such a cheat with my robo now!
A true labour of love for a true home :D x
Posted by: Leanne | June 28, 2013 at 09:14 AM