i've discovered one perk of moving a lot

... is that it makes for pretty fun art:




















These are all the addresses we've had together in our 9.5 years of marriage.
--current addy blocked out, obv.--

(and that's not counting the two apartments Ryan had in Nashville last year!)
Couldn't really make cool, personal art like this if we'd only have lived in one or two houses, right? ;)

I've been wanting to make some sort of canvas to hang over the big breaker box that's smack dab in the middle of our laundry room wall. I had decided to hang a canvas over it with hinges so we can hide the box and still have it easily accessible, but I couldn't decide what to paint on it for the longest time...
I have a "home sweet home" sign I kind of wanted to hang in there alongside it, so I finally threw together my love for subway art style words, and the fact that we've been around the block with addresses so to speak, and ta-da... A graphic statement of us being the nomads that we have been our whole married life!















(project note: doing vinyl letter "stencils" is much easier using a wood board rather than canvas. The flatter surface works better for less bleeding with the paint. I needed to use canvas because I needed a lightweight and open in the back piece here, however, for any future subway word art, I'm sticking with wood!)

So all I did was type up all of our past addresses in my Silhouette program (or you can use Word or any other graphic/photoshop program), size them and stretch them to fit into my puzzle, and then sent it through the machine using regular, cheap old contact paper. (no way was I going to waste my good vinyl for such a big piece!) That all took me about an hour.
















Getting the letters on the canvas, straight and spaced right? That was a whole nother challenge. Contact paper doesn't stick too well to canvas. *see note above! Getting the letters and numbers situated took me probably two hours.




I gave it all a quick spray with white spray paint to try and get the letters "sealed" into place and prevent bleeding.













Then I used some leftover wall paint and went to town covering the whole thing.

Then.
I peeled some vinyl off.
And the paint had bled so badly. So, so badly. Ugh.
I tried painting the letters back in with white paint, but it looked horrible.
So. Frustrating.
Meanwhile I tried spray painting over the top few lines that I hadn't painted yet, to see how that would turn out. It worked like a charm.
I don't know why I didn't just spray paint to begin with. Well, I do know, it's because I wanted it that dark orange color. :(
But, brown (spray paint on hand) it shall be.
So. I removed all the letters, sprayed it all down white again, printed out the letters again, put them all on again (which was much easier and faster this time because I could see where they had been before!) and then painted it all with my dark brown spray paint...
















After a few coats of spray paint and a few minutes drying time, I simply peeled off all my letters & numbers and...
Finally.





















Okay, so if I hadn't basically had to do it twice? It was a super easy project (with the vinyl cutter!) and I absolutely LOVE the piece. We're painting the laundry room (and cabinets!)(and hopefully putting in a new floor!) this weekend, and I can't wait to show you it in it's place!!