3.15.2011

fresh from the Makery: WARNING graphic content!

Dressing up the plain white wooden letters that make up my son's name (obligatory Grandma gift?) is a simple project I've been wanting to tackle for awhile now (along with the hand-print kit, also from Grandma, both of which we received months before my son was even born, almost three years ago).



Around the holidays I picked up some print remnants at the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse (along with a stack of other stuff I've yet to put to use). 


Fast-forward a few more months, use wooden letters as templates to cut out matching paper letters, attach with a little acrylic medium, and you've got yourself an alphabet makeover!


I prefer sponge brushes for this kind of project because I dislike brush strokes (detest them!).  I squeezed a little matte acrylic medium (use gloss if you're into that kinda thing) into a reusable container and applied medium - which acts like an adhesive in this case - to both the front of the letter and the back of the paper letter cut-out.


Then slap the two together like a sandwich and smooth out any wrinkles or bubbles in the paper.  I like to reinforce the seal with another coat of medium over the top of the paper.


The medium has a cloudy quality when wet but should dry clear.


And here are all the letters drying:


I'll post a true "after" image when these are dry and in his room somewhere.  We're in a bit of a room transition at the moment, what with the promise of a "big boy bed" looming in his near future.  His room has never had much of a theme, having been through two moves in his 2.7 or so years, but now that we're settled down a bit, and with a total room makeover necessary for squeezing in a twin bed, it should provide an opportunity to address some bare walls.  Trains still reign supreme around here, but maybe these print shop remnants will inspire a super friends graphic novel kind of theme.  Hey, a mama can dream, right?

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