May The Force Be With You

This week is all about lettering. Sometimes a room just needs a little something, and this is a quick way to make a statement. I typically do my lettering two different ways. If the lettering is more than one line and/or requires a specific font that I do not have, I will call on Hugh Hoeger of Say What Lettering to custom design a one time use stencil. This project is a good example of why I use Say What! The phrase I was to paint on a wall in a little boy’s room, The Darth Vader Room, was: "Truly Wonderful the mind of a child is. – Jedi Master Yoda." I wanted the phrase to be two lines, with the name, Jedi Master Yoda on the third. I emailed this info off to Hugh with the size requirements and a font my client thought she wanted to use. Hugh, as always, responded with a much more appropriate font, one called the Stars Wars font! So, of course, that is what we went with. Using a level, I marked the wall and began the process:

For those of you who have never used Say What custom lettering, it is a very low tack vinyl that comes in three layers: a backing, the adhesive vinyl, and a thin top layer which you see me pulling off in this picture.

Now I have all three lines up on the wall.

Before I begin stenciling, I burnish it with a hard plastic tool. Geesh, almost every picture that features my boney hands, also shows a finger with a band-aide on it.

The color chosen for the lettering is a dark navy, so I did three, thin coats of paint, using a stencil brush.

Here is the first coat, which is too light, and not opaque.

With stenciling completed, , it’s time to pull off the stencil. The great part about using this method is the fact that Hugh has done all the work of spacing out the words and cutting the lines as they will be stenciled.

Because the adhesive on the vinyl is such a low tack, it comes right off the wall and does not pull up the wall color. But, as you can see, there still is a little weeding to be done.

To weed, or remove those center pieces, I use this handy little tool that I get when I purchase Modellos, but you could use the tip of an xacto knife.

Tah-dah! Here it is with these cool saber sword laser lights!