Misc-

DIY Thrift Store Word Art

chezlin ·

While on vacation my sister said something super quotable, and I decided to take said quote and make it into some art for my kitchen. I did the same technique as I had done a few years ago to make some art for my living room. Basically I just took some thrift store art, masked out a phrase, painted over the whole thing and then peeled off the lettering. It's super easy and turns out really nice! You'll need: -a piece of thrift store art -paint -spray adhesive Not pictured: -printed quote -paint brush -xacto knife Optional: -sandpaper

Remove the artwork from the frame. I used a flathead screwdriver to help me bend the nails out of the way. I actually ended up removing these nails later on.

Unfortunately the piece I got was quite water damaged. The backing and the print were really warped.

In the other one I did, I just used the backing that came with the artwork, but obviously that wasn't going to work for this one, so I cut a new backing from some foam core board I had lying around.

Use the spray adhesive to glue the artwork onto the backing. Thankfully, for me, the wrinkling caused by water damage was able to be smoothed out.

This is optional, but if you want to paint the frame, lightly sand it and then paint it whatever color you'd like. I went with white.

Make a 1/4inch border around the whole piece. This is only really necessary for framed work because the edges will get covered by the frame slightly, so you can't have the lettering right on the edge. Measuring out the phrase spacing will be different for everyone depending on the size of the art, the length of your quote and the size of the lettering. My quote was kind of long and I wanted to make sure it fit nicely, so I measured everything out and made guide lines so I could line up the words. You could totally just eyeball it though. I did that for the other one I made, since it was such a short phrase.

Cut the letters out. To reduce paper waste, I typed the whole phrase with no spaces, since I was going to have to re position the quote after cutting it out anyway.

After everything is cut out, lay them out on a scrap piece of cardboard and then flip all of the letters over. Lightly spray the letters with the spray adhesive. If you spray in small bursts it helps keep the letters from being blown away. Let them sit for about 5 minutes.

Now stick them on the artwork!

Now you paint!

Just completely paint over the image! I really like when you can see the brush strokes so I made sure not to make it all nice and smooth.

Once it's all painted and still wet, start unsticking the letters. Just be sure not to smudge paint onto the letters. I used a blade to help me get the letters up.

Time to reassemble the piece! Just stick the artwork back into the frame and secure in place!

Like I mentioned before, I ended up removing the nails that held the art in place so I just had to hammer a few new ones in. This probably wouldn't be necessary for everyone though.

And you're done! Now go proudly display you're new piece of art!