A DIY Art Project (love sign)

 Inspired by these two images...

 Source 1

Source 2

...I decided to make a DIY art piece to jazz up our breakfast nook.

Here is my version of the two pieces fused together...

While the finished product is super cute, this project was definitely not without its' hiccups!

For the most part, I followed the tutorial from The Handmade Home, 

but with a few minor changes.

 Instead of painter's tape for the letters, I used vinyl letter that I cut on the Cricut (Plantin Schoolbook cartridge).

It took forever and a day to get all of the letters lined up and spaced just the right way.

Then I thought I'd be clever and spray a clear coat over the top to prevent the blue paint from seeping under the letters.

Bad idea.

The clear spray caused all of my perfectly placed letters to shrivel and curl up.

Total bummer.

 So I had to cut and place all of the letters. Again.

Once that fiasco was over, I painted it all using some leftover Benjamin Moore Woodlawn Blue (from our bedroom).

I should have removed the vinyl letters before the paint dried. 

But I got sidetracked after cleaning out my paint brush (I'm SURE it was the kids' fault) and didn't get to it until all of the paint had dried, resulting in this problem...

So I ended up using a tiny art brush to fill in all of the spots that had peeled off and an exact-o knife to scrape off the bits of paint that had seeped under the vinyl letters. 

 Tedious work.

After all of that work, the final step was to add a frame around the edges to hide the wood slats on the back that hold the whole thing together. I chose to do this last because I wanted to leave the frame wood colored and didn't want to have to paint around it.

Although this project was a pain in the you know what, I absolutely love it and would absolutely do it all over again. It was totally worth the work.

P.S. That gallery wall in the background is still a work in progress :)

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