Free Stylin’s Vinyl Lettering Fake-out

First, THANK YOU all who’ve joined Free Stylin’ on Facebook! Y’all are awesome! If I could, I’d give you each a hug!

If you haven’t yet, I triple dog dare you to just take a sec to go over and “Like” the Free Stylin’ page – please!

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It ends on Friday, January 7th, @ 12 noon EST.

Good Luck!

K, so on to today’s post:

The Hubs and I just celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary (yay us!), and I wanted to make something meaningful for our room. I’ve seen eleventy billion vinyl lettering signs but 1.) I wanted something a little different and 2.) I don’t have a vinyl letter machine/craft cutter thingy. So I came up with my own way to make a cute sign for us, for Free – using things around my house.

Like this:

and these:

and a couple of cans of spray paint.

As I was deciding what our sign should say, I remembered seeing others that had “Established in ….(wedding year).” We married in 1999, and, to be a little different, I decided to use the Roman Numerals for that year for our vinyl lettering fake-out. This website is where I plugged in 1999, and it spit out MCMXCIX.

“Here’s your sign.”

So I grabbed an old board that was in my garage

(it was rescued from almost going in a friend’s trashcan).

I sanded down the rough spots.

I spray painted it with my first color choice.

(This will have two colors, but you can have as

many as you feel like spraying.)

While the paint dried, it was time to make a stencil,

and here’s how:

Once you’ve chosen an idea of what you want your sign to say, you’ll need to find the letters (or numbers). This part can be fun AND time consuming. I found all of the letters and numbers I’ll ever need here.

(What a collection!)

The trick for the stencils is to pick a letter that is wide enough to paint and one that is without a lot of extra scrolly bits. (I love me some scrolly, but not when you’re working with an X-acto knife!)

When you’ve chosen the letter you like best, right click it. You can adjust its size now, and I changed mine to Large.

Next, go to Print Preview to see how it looks. You may need to adjust it here, too (some of my letters were changed to 90%, others at 65%). Turning the page from Portfolio to Landscape helps as well.

Cut out the letter as much as you can and eyeball measure it (that’s a scientific term) to the board you’re using. (Because it’s probably dry by now!)

Once you’ve made it to this point, you can cut out the stencil.

Using a cutting board, lay your letter down and press

the Press’n Seal over it.

Cut the entire outline with an X-acto knife

(or really sharp scissors).

You can choose to use the positive image (on the left)

or negative image (on the right).

I used the positive image for my project.

*FYI* I have repeating letters in my Roman Numerals, and I made more than one stencil of the same letter. The Press’n Seal is only good for one take with the spray paint. Trying to reuse it would have been a nightmare, and I wouldn’t have come out on the winning side.

I lined up all my pretty letters in order

and adjusted them to my liking.

(Notice it’s my liking – not necessarily straight or perfect.)

After removing the Press’n Seal from the paper letter,

I used an old gift card to smooth out the bubbles and make sure the edges were flat.

(Notice the pencil marks? No prob. The paint will totally hide it!)

Once all the letters were in place, I bathed the whole

board with two coats of red spray paint.
(Colonial Red from Rustoleum)

Once the paint was dry, it was easy to peel off the

Press’n Seal.

(Yes, I use charcoal to hold down my paint tarp (alright, Wal-mart sacks).

I seriously use ANYTHING. ANYTHING!

Nothing in my house is safe from my projects. Nothing.)

Although the color was nice, it was on the bright side, so I toned it down with some brown craft paint diluted in water.

A little sanding roughed it up a bit.

These two steps help hide any imperfections

you don’t want.

The sanding also uncovered some of the gold paint underneath.

I sprayed one coat of polyurethane sealant

on the board to help seal it.

In order to hang the sign, I needed nail holes.

I measured the board

and, using my drill, made small holes for the nails.

As an alternative, you could super glue leftover

picture hangers to the back.

And the finished product:

And hung on the wall in our room:

Pretty cute, right?

Total project cost:

FREE!

by using things I already had in my garage and kitchen!

By the way, the Press’n Seal people aren’t paying me to use their product. I just really really think it was one of the BEST inventions. I use it ALL.THE.TIME.

And I’m not gonna lie, I would LOVE my own craft cutter/vinyl letter thingy. Someday!

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Comments

Summer says:

January 5, 2011 at 7:03 am

So I am SO doing this!!! I have blue paint that I am going to use. Now, what to say on it….. Superwoman…Best Sister….Amazing Wife….I ate your chocolate squirrel.

Jessica Simonsen Howard says:

January 5, 2011 at 2:29 pm

You are amazing Beth. I love this idea and I am going to try it sometime, I just need to figure out what to say.

Angela says:

January 6, 2011 at 2:17 am

HOLY. CRAP. This is so ROCKIN'! I have a board in the garage right now, just calling to me! How can you stand yourself, you're so AMAZING! LOVE IT!!!

Green Door Girl says:

January 6, 2011 at 3:06 am

GREAT job – this turned out really nice – I don't have the vinyl thingy either, so this is a great alternative and FREE is that much better!

Kate says:

January 6, 2011 at 4:32 am

You are a crafting genius? Will you make me one?

Jami says:

January 7, 2011 at 3:01 pm

Love it- you have really good steps here that I'm going to follow at some point.

Jami
http://www.AnOregonCottage.com

Emily says:

January 7, 2011 at 8:25 pm

Press and seal…who knew? You never cease to amaze me!

From Snowflakes To Hotcakes says:

January 31, 2011 at 12:02 am

I know I'm late to the party, but I just found your blog through Sarah (Thrifty Decor Check) and am LOVING it. I want to do this project, and I think I have almost everything I need. Looking forward to making some meaningful artwork for our home! And I am a press and seal junkie!

Joni says:

March 6, 2011 at 9:51 pm

This is such a great idea! Very creative!

Lori @ Our Forever House says:

July 18, 2011 at 2:51 am

visiting from HoH! This is such an awesome idea. I just picked up 10 rolls of press n seal for 74 cents a piece on clearance at Target. Can’t wait to give it a try!

Denyse@Crazy Beautiful Life says:

July 19, 2011 at 12:09 am

I have a ton of rolls of the Press n’ Seal…and I’m just loving this idea…Thanks for sharing

Miss Charming says:

July 31, 2011 at 9:47 pm

What a great idea, Beth! (Especially for those of us who don’t have a fancy vinyl machine.)

cathy says:

August 2, 2011 at 2:20 pm

I use Press n Seal for my paint try liner!!