I'm Thankful for vinyl wall art

It is almost Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday.  So many times I feel like my life is over flowing with reasons to be Thankful - a warm home in the winter, hot coco, a good book, family, warm socks, my children and so many other little things.  I decided I wanted to make a wall art canvas to list some of the things I am thankful for to display in our home.  I also wanted to try my hand at vinyl since I have been intimidated up to this point.  (there are alternate ways to do this at the end of this post). Here is what I came up with: 

 I designed the word art in my software program (SCAL, MTC, Silhouette software).  I tried to pick fonts that fit the words and then organize them so that they would fit on my canvas.  The canvas is 11x14.  I bought a lot of these canvases when they were really cheap at Michael's. They are the perfect size for placing on shelves and on bookcases. 

I painted the canvas orange first (the color you want to show through).  I put vinyl on my mat and cut the words out and then peeled the vinyl around the words off and then all the O centers, a centers etc (that was the hardest part!) leaving the stuff I wanted to keep on the mat.  Then I cut my transfer tape to size (you NEED this stuff) and rub really hard over all the words so they would stick to the transfer tape.  Then I lifted up the transfer tape slowly making sure all the letters were picking up as well, if they didn't I would put it down and rub again. 

Vinyl isn't hard but it is time consuming for something like this will a lot of words.  I probably spent 3+ hours on this project. 

Then you lay the transfer tape on top of the canvas and rub really hard again.  I started in one corner and worked to the opposite corner (vertically) and then peeled it back a little at a time.  

After all the words were attached to the canvas and the transfer tape was completely off.  I painted over the letters and everything in brown.  I waited until it was completely dry and got a pair of tweezers and pulled off each letter. 

  

Alternate ways to do this are:

1. to cut the words for card stock and use it as a stencil.  So you'd paint the background color first and then use the orange for the words. You'd have to use a strong temporary adhesive though.   

2.  I could have used left the vinyl on.  I had white vinyl but I could have bought orange vinyl and left it on - that would have been easier but I used what I had on hand. 

3.  If you don't have design software - you could cut each word out separately and then arrange on the canvas and glue the letters down.

4.  You could use an arrangement of letter stickers

5.  You could use letter stencils and just use that.

6. Letter stamps and acrylic paint or ink.