Be Awesome

So, I mentioned the last time I was here that I have been spending wasting time on Pinterest. And that is true. Maybe I'll be inspired to write about a few of the other things I've managed to do lately, but last week I read this over at Young House Love.  And I thought a Pinterest Challenge was a great idea, so I took them up on the invitation to create my own spin on something I've pinned.

This week is my brother's birthday, and I had pinned this poster, which I thought was right up his alley. It is a quotation from Barney on the TV show How I Met Your Mother. But I didn't really think he would dig the yellow, and I have no idea if this poster is still available, so I wanted to make my own version.

Source: assets.lukesbeard.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I invested $15 and one Saturday into this project. First, I picked up a 2x4 foot canvas at Michaels with a 50% off coupon.  Beyond that I only used supplies I already had, which included a paint sample I bought to test the color for my bedroom (Smoke Screen in Olympic paint from Lowes), and some red and black craft paint. I think it was $15 well spent.  And I had fun making it, so I can't complain about it costing me a Saturday, either.

I rolled on the Smoke Screen with a mini-roller. I really like this color; it's blue in some lights, grey in others.  I didn't put down anything to protect the carpet because we are going to be tearing it out any day now. (Can't wait!) While it dried I played around with layouts and fonts for the text. I settled on Britannic Bold and Segoe Condensed. Then I printed out the letters I needed to make stencils. I just did this in MS Word. I printed the stencils in landscape orientation so I could fit more letters per page. I used the outline effect on the font so that I wouldn't waste a ton of ink, which was wise since my cartridge is almost empty.

Then I spent a few hours cutting out the letters while watching HGTV Design Star on Hulu. I mostly used scissors, but I used an exacto knife for the little ones and tricky parts. Finally, I got to paint. I mixed together red and black paint to make the dark red and used a teeny tiny brush from a kids watercolor set to paint all the letters. I dry brushed "sad" to make it look a little sad. I painted  "awesome" with straight red to make it stand out. The color scheme kind of reminds me of the St. Louis Cardinals jerseys from the '80s, which is perfect, because my brother is a huge Cardinals fan. I used the lid from a popcorn tin to trace the circle for "true story."  The lid even fit in with the color scheme. I just scotch taped my stencils to the canvas to paint them on, and I eye-balled the placement.

It probably took about eight hours total to do this project. The stencil cutting and painting were both time-consuming, but my method got the job done. It could probably be done more quickly if your tools are superior to mine. If I would change anything, I'd stretch the letters in "awesome" to make them a little taller. If you're more particular than me, you could pencil in lines for guidelines for your stencils. But all in all, I'm really pleased with how it came out, and my brother loved it. Which is awesome.

Edited to add: By the way, be sure to go check out all the other great Pinterest inspired projects at the blogs of the amazing challenge hosts:

Bower Power
Making a House a Home
Style by Emily Henderson
Young House Love