DIY Laundry Giclee Inspired by Ballard Designs

Hi guys..long time no blog..sorry! Things have gotten pretty hectic with the beginning of the new year and also admittedly, the commencement of my Pinterest account :/ Me, distracted? Not at all! 

Well, putting Pinterest aside, here I am with another fun (the fun is actually subjective in this case, you'll see why) DIY decor idea for you :D 

The picture above from Ballard Designs is pretty much anyone's dream laundry room, right?? I say yes. I have been eyeing this beautiful laundry giclee for about a year and a half...deciding how I could justify $129 piece of beautiful art in my laundry room. Mr. P decided for me, it could not be justified. LOL. So when my friend Debbie told me she also loved the giclee, and owned a Cricut Expression...the idea seemed like an exciting new possibility ;) 

Being only $35 for a set of three, I thought these rustic safety pins were a much better deal. Instead of being patient and waiting for them to adorn my laundry room..I slapped these large lovlies above our TV nook and I thought they were a great fit. So there they will stay. Ginormous rustic safety pins don't have to be doomed to the laundry room, right? I don't think so either!

Debbie and I took a field trip to Hobby Lobby. Since Panera Bread was in the same shopping center, we were also forced to have an amazing lunch. Yes, it was a hard day indeed! 

So for this project, we each purchased a roll of Vinyl and a blank 24''x 36'' canvas. (The size of the Ballard canvas is a square 24'' x 24'' canvas which we could not find. Its possible they might be sold at Michaels or Aaron Brothers if you would prefer your giclee looks truer to the real thing. I figured the other size would work just as well for me).

The roll of Vinyl was $7 and the canvas was on sale for $8.50. Look out for a 40% off coupon to make this an even better deal.

Debbie was so kind as to cut all my letters for me. The large font for the first row was 4'' and the rest of the letters were 2''. I measured out the very fist line allowing 5 inches of space. Then a 1 inch spacer. Then 2 inches of space for my 2 inch letters. It turned out the the tall letters (such as k and h) were the only ones that actually measured a full 2 inches. So I revised my measurements to 2 inch spaces for letters and 1/2 inch for the spaces in between the letters.

After I had pencilled in all my measurements (there was a lot of trial and error going on!) I finally was able to sort out all my vinyl letter cut outs. To make the process easier, they were put into alphabetical order in coordinating piles. Punctuation marks and capital letters were separated. I got out my laptop and pulled up the Ballard Design photo as a reference. Next comes the tedious part (this took a little less than 3 hours).

Stick all your letters on in the order they go in. I ended up spacing my letters a little too far apart and instead of taking all my letters out and starting over, I just cut out a few words that weren't crucial to the definition. Yes, I'm such a cheater :P

I chose a satin spray paint from Home Depot. The color was Nutmeg. Debbie used an acrylic craft paint, the end results on both turned out pretty similar in my opinion. With the acrylic paint, the letters did bleed a bit underneath the vinyl but I actually thought it gave the sign a really awesome old printing press style, stamped look. Using the spray paint I also had some bleeding. When I took my sign outside to spray, it was VERY windy. A few of letters started to lift off. I ran into the garage with my sign so as to protect my letters and began to spray. I accidentally sprayed the wall. Shoot! Back outside :( 

The letters lifting ended up causing me some paint bleeding. Which is ok if you like that vintage stamped look...but it can also cause in-uniformity because some letters will be clean cut and others will have bleeding. In the end, that did happen to me but it really didn't look as bad as I thought and it made my sign look really unique.

Let your paint dry then begin to peel off your vinyl. Watch out for those pesky little periods, and dotted i's. 

I was able to correct some of the major bleeding spots with a Q-Tip and nail polish remover. It did do the trick, but be VERY careful because a few slip ups with make it look terrible! You also have the option of doing touch ups with white paint.

Here is my end result! For about $21 bucks I am totally happy. (It's not up in my laundry room yet because I need a shelf and a few accessories to complete my look. I plan to hang this sign over the washer, and a reclaimed barn wood shelf over the dryer. On the shelf will be some old tins, and mason jars filled with wooden clothes pins and rusty safety pins). The wind REALLY worked against me though and I came out with some bleeding in a few areas and some patches where my paint was heavier than others where the wind blew :( If you attempt this project, make sure the weather is nice and your letters are pressed on nice and tight and you should be fine. I will warn you, unless you absolutely love crafting and DIY, this project will probably make you want to kill yourself before it's over. It certainly can't be done in a day unless you have no kids and plan on not eating or showering. Unless you stay up half the night finishing. You really have to WANT to save a buck to complete this project. This project saved me about $110 plus tax and shipping which was awesome. It's up to you to decide if the savings is worth the work. 

So all in all, I'm really happy I have this sign for my laundry room! There was plenty of trial and error, corrections, tedious work, mistakes and messes made along the way. But unless an employee from Ballard Designs visits my laundry room...I don't think anyone will know the difference ;) 

Happy Crafting!