✥ Last Name Typography Art ✥

I have no less than 10 projects started right now!
Ten.Unfinished.Projects. {sigh}

I'm not sure where the project A.D.D. came from, but I wish it would go away! 

However, a few things are finally coming together.

I want to share with you guys the centerpiece art I made for my gallery wall. 

This is how it looked for probably months! Woops!
I needed something to fill the largest frame right in the center of my wall.

This pic was awhile back, since then some "art" projects have been slowly coming  together.
Here's my inspiration. These babies are all over Etsy. This is one of a {literally} 1016 of great examples!

This style is my fav. Love how the letters are from unusual items, love the water spouts! Like you just walked around the city with your camera!

I looked for online for ages trying to find a stash of letters to use. 

In the end I realized I would need to go a little more traditional and use letters from signs and buildings, you know if I didn't want to pay for the letters. {And I don't want to...so...}
I found a great tutorial from Stephanie @ Full of Great Ideas, she did a bunch of collages you guys should check out.

K, guys, this project is so easy!  You can just whip it up on Word.
As a side note, I am totally loving Microsoft Publisher. It's part of the Microsoft home office tools and also comes free with Word for Mac. You can do everything on there! Make business cards, blog headers, format a poster to create Subway Art- basically, whatever you want. Love. It.

Open a blank document and select the size you'd like the collage to to be.
Transfer the pic to your document by either:  dragging digital images onto a MSPublisher doc or save to computer and upload each one.
Then size them either by double clicking in the pic and selecting the sizes or dragging the corner of the pic to get the right size.
Then place them into a grid. 
For the full tutorial I'm going to direct you to Stephanie. You know how anal thorough I can be with my own tuts, but I didn't have a single question using hers, so you're good to go. 
I'm still and am always HAPPY to answer questions on the "how to-s"!!

The letters and numbers are from the nicest photographer ever. This dude, Leo Reynolds, who allows people to use his letters and numbers as long as it's only for personal use! So rad, right?! Thanks Leo!

It took me some time to decide on what which letters to use and what I may like the most vs what would look the best on an already busy wall.

I printed this guy up at Costco. Cost me $3.14. Not too shabby!

I am very happy with the end result. I think it both stands out in a complicated wall, while simultaneously not drawing too much attention from all the smaller pieces. 
Thanks for checking out my post!

Anyone want to make their own? 
I would love to see it!
Looking for places to link up your projects? Check out my Party page.

I'm also linked up here.

 

Wood Grain Initial Plaques

I've been working on a gallery wall for my front entry way. I thought I would some personalized typography would be the perfect thing to break up all the frames. I had two pieces of scrap wood. (Actually 2 blocks of wood from some "never got made" pinewood derby kits.)

But I remembered a number 7 that was made from Young House Love. Here's my take on that project.

 [1]  Sloppily stain one side of the blocks of wood.

 You could also leave it plain wood tone, but I used some clearance stain so that it would somewhat match the dark wood in my home.

 

[2] Using Microsoft Word {or something like it} choose your font, change your desired letter into the dimensions of the wood piece, & print it out.

  [3] Tape over the dry stain with painter's tape, covering the whole piece front. 

[4] Tape the printed letter over the painter's tape.

[5] Use an Exacto knife to cut out the letter, making sure to press hard,
cutting through the paper and tape.

[6] Peel off tape around your letter and paint 2-3 coats of paint, peel of letter shaped tape when final coat of paint is still wet.

[7] Apply clear coat.

[8] You can attach picture hanging hardware- or like in my case, just drill a hole with your Dremel for the nails to fit into.

Here's an up close of the finished plaques, it's a little hard to see the wood grain in the pics but I tried my best!

As always, thanks for for checking out my project! And a BIG thanks for these oh-so-fabulous sites who've featured this project!!

Looking for places to link up your projects? Check out my Party Page.
I'm also linked up here

✥DIY Anthro Zinc Letter w/Foil✥

A few little issues at hand. We finally had a sunny afternoon- but alas it was too windy to spray paint off my third floor balcony. I currently have 5 unfinished projects around the living room and kitchen. This drives me crazy. I'm a "1 and done before you move on" type a gal.

Now, onward to a real, live, actual completed project.

Can you believe it?

Typography has been huge for awhile now. I bought this 12' cardboard B from JoAnn's almost a month ago. I originally planned on doing a moss covered PB inspired  look, but after sitting with the idea for awhile it didn't feel like me. I think I like to look at other people's, but it's not really something I love.
Does this ever happen to you? It's hard sometimes to see all these good ideas and then edit them down to what you would chose if you had to pay full price for it.

Longest intro ever, but I decided I wanted a metallic letter. Something that looks like steel, not fake paint steel. ;) Anthro has these sweet Zinc ones- prices range from 18-98 bucks.

There are several tutorials online for faux zinc painting-mostly a black or blue base with silver paint on top.

I wanted to experiment with something else.
I used aluminum foil, putting shiny side towards the cardboard and mod podged it on.

For a good final result you want to do the edges first and you want to make sure they are well adhered- no bubbles!
 As you can see, I did the top first and then the edges and did NOT like it. Fail!
So plan B- edges first, then top.


First: Put a sheet of foil, shiny side up, on a cutting board, then put the letter on top of that. Then cut around the letter with the knife. Remove the letter and carefully finish cutting through the foil wherever needed. Make sure you use a new blade and use a ruler for the straight portions to get a clean cut. You don't want the foil to crumple. I have heard from others that if you handle the foil a lot or if it's not cut out carefully then the end result won't look right.
  Once the foil letter is cut out, it can be laid on top of the cardboard letter. I sealed it with a coat of mod podge over the whole thing.

Note: if the aluminum foil was wrinkled from handling it or from cutting it out your results will look like an aluminum foil letter! NOT a zinc one!

I had some wrinkling when I applied the mod podge, a similar effect to when you use it with paper. This light wrinkling is fine and adds to the textured look of real zinc.

After the Mod Podge I wish I could say I was 100 percent stoked with the result, but at this point I thought it looked too plain.

I dry brushed a little black paint on- and then kicked myself. Did I just end up faux painting after all that?
Yuppers.

This is the end result.
Now I'm happy with it- amazingly, it does look like metal. That layer of mod podge changed the feel of the aluminum foil tremendously- in a good way!

If you go to the Anthropologie site and click on the zinc letters, then zoom in you can see the texture is very similar.

Yay!

Thanks for looking!
Can you believe all these features? I feel so lucky!


Check out these Awesome sites who GENEROUSLY featured MY PROJECT!!

Looking for places to link up your projects? Check out my Party page.

I'm also linked up here.