David and I have become avid art collectors, if you didn’t know. Fine art in particular:
And we feel the need to put it on display for the world to see, just so we can brag about it. 😉
Back when we were planning the office/playroom, after we came up with our travel map idea, I came across this project on Pinterest that I absolutely loved!
SourceHow cute is that? The room that we chose for the office/playroom has a ton of wall space, so I thought it would be the perfect place to put it.
I won’t go through all of the nitty gritty details, since the original poster talks about it, but we bought slightly larger door molding to go with the rest of the room, and cut it down for the same dimensions as the above link, 60″x32″.
We used just regular string we had in the workshop and stapled it onto the back of the molding before we hung it:
I later convinced one of my good friends, Lakshmi, and with her awesome Cricut skills to help me out with the sign above! I met Lakshmi when I joined my awesome, nerdy, engineering sorority in my freshmen year at University of Delaware.
I promise it was NOT like that! (At least when I was there haha) For real though, if you know any college age engineering girls, looking for a supportive community, I highly encourage you to share this with them! Alpha Omega Epsilon
Anyways, Lakshmi has always been a great friend and go to person to chat about life with, and how lucky is it that we ending up living in the same town this many years after college??
She first started by designing the letters and font through the cricut computer program.
We had to play with the font type and sizing to make sure that it was going to scale right on the wall with the size of the frame.
Of course, we had enlisted the help of this dude. He was VERY helpful 😉
It has an awesome feature to be able to cut a sample on regular computer paper so that you can get a feel for the sizing before committing to it and cutting the vinyl letters.
Here are the letter print on regular computer paper, just taped up on the wall. From here, we were able to decide that “Hamilton” needed to be a bit larger, while “Fine Art Gallery” looked like it was going to be the perfect size. So we tried one more time.
After finding the perfect fit, we got out the black vinyl sheet for the finished product. I must say, I was mesmerized watching the machine do the cutting. It does it at just the right depth to cut the sticky vinyl, but not deep enough to cut the paper underneath.
Lakshmi taught me about the block technique, which is useful when you print out words on different lines to conserve the vinyl paper, so they become easy to line up when you actually put it on the wall.
With the help of some sticky transfer paper to the back of the vinyl, you can use the usual credit card technique of peeling it off and sticking it to the wall.
It ended up being a pretty big piece, so it was useful to have an extra set of helping hands. Especially when they’re a good friend’s 🙂
Almost done….
And finished product!
We’re so happy with how this project turned out! I know it’s going to get a lot of use over the next few years between school art, seasonal projects, and just some random masterpieces created at home 🙂
The best part about this little area is the table. Dave’s mom watches Connor for us once a week, and one week, she brought this little table and two chairs up with her. It is SO adorable. And it is particularly special because it’s the table that Dave used to color on and create his own little masterpieces on when he was little. Nothing like something new, and something old and special to finish off this project! Memories on top of memories. <3
What’s your favorite way to keep/display your kids’ art? And thanks to “And Next Comes L” for this great project idea!