My friend was in the middle of adhering a supposedly self-adhesive saying to her bathroom wall. It was not going well because of the texture on the walls and then her darling niece made it worse by mangling half of the letters and guaranteeing they'd never stick. Oops.
I saw the aftermath and suggested we trace the letters onto the wall, peel off the sticker and fill in with acrylic paint. It takes a bit of time, but once it's done, it's not going anywhere!
Grab these items and maybe a glass of iced tea to get started:
~A saying or graphic you want to look at for a while
~pencil
~level or ruler
~eraser (Staedtler worked very well)
~tape
~paint brush (smaller= more control & definition)
~acrylic paint (cheap, quick-drying & water clean-up)
~paper towels & a few q tips for any mess ups
1. Prepare words/graphic for transfer. If using a projector, print onto transparency paper. Other ideas include buying letters from Joann's or Michael's, using Cricut or going old school and cutting letters/images out by hand.
2. If using words, lightly draw a level line in pencil where you want the lettering to be. Tape letters into place and step back to see if you like the placement from far away as well as close-up. Then start tracing. If using a graphic, simply pick the location and tape into place before beginning to trace.
* if walls are textured, like mine, it's okay that pencil marks are a bit rough- you can erase them after the paint has dried
3. Peel taped words/graphics off wall and get ready to paint! I had to do two coats, so focus the first coat on edging and the second on making the paint opaque.
*especially with lettering, the closer you can be to the area, the better. I perched on the bathroom counter, which allowed me to steady the brush by placing my wrist/palm against the wall
*if your piece has several lines of lettering, I suggest letting each line dry before moving on to the next one. It gives your fingers a break :) and once the previous line is dry, you can paint from below or above the line you're working on w/o worrying about smearing the work you just finished
4. Let paint dry completely before erasing pencil lines.
*acrylic is very forgiving, so if you mess up, simply wet a q tip and fix any mistakes. you can always go back and touch up, so no need to stress
Enjoy!
1. Prepare words/graphic for transfer. If using a projector, print onto transparency paper. Other ideas include buying letters from Joann's or Michael's, using Cricut or going old school and cutting letters/images out by hand.
 |
| The kit my friend bought had most of the words in black, but 'pray' in silver, so we had planned to only hand-paint 'pray' in gold. Her niece's curiosity gave me a bit more to do! |
* if walls are textured, like mine, it's okay that pencil marks are a bit rough- you can erase them after the paint has dried
3. Peel taped words/graphics off wall and get ready to paint! I had to do two coats, so focus the first coat on edging and the second on making the paint opaque.
*especially with lettering, the closer you can be to the area, the better. I perched on the bathroom counter, which allowed me to steady the brush by placing my wrist/palm against the wall
*if your piece has several lines of lettering, I suggest letting each line dry before moving on to the next one. It gives your fingers a break :) and once the previous line is dry, you can paint from below or above the line you're working on w/o worrying about smearing the work you just finished
4. Let paint dry completely before erasing pencil lines.
*acrylic is very forgiving, so if you mess up, simply wet a q tip and fix any mistakes. you can always go back and touch up, so no need to stress
Enjoy!
~Nicole
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