This was the first one I did with Zoe's help. On Monday, we purchased the wooden plank at Roberts, and then painted it bright orange and let it dry overnight. Then the next day we went to a local place and I went a little crazy and bought a bunch of vinyl sheets. Then we came home and put this together! The ghosts and tombstones were from Paperdoll Dress Up, and the "Happy Halloween" was cut from Lyrical Letters in the Jack Sprat feature for the "Holidays" cut (page 67 of your handbook). I was thinking to cut it it at two inches, but that ended up being way too small, and so I loaded it up on my mat and hit the 'fit to page' feature, and as a result it was cut at 4". The Ghosts were cut at 2" (lower right) and 1.5". And the tombstones were cut at 1.5" and 1.25"... I think. I used a black sharpie to accentuate the eyes and mouths for the ghosts, and then did the same for the tombstone's features.
I made this one yesterday. I believe the material of the board is MDF, and I learned that MDF painted with regular craft paint doesn't work very well. You can't get an even coating.. as you can see; however it is not as noticeable in person. If I do another one of these, I'm thinking I will need to buy either spray paint primer and use craft paint over it, or I'll just buy smaller sized cans of spray paint and paint it that way instead. I do have to admit though, the paint is quite old and I think it had seperated at some point so that may have had something to do with it not coating evenly. Anyway, after I applied two coats and let it dry, I took a dauber and with my "Spring Leaf" CTMH ink pad, I daubed the beveled bits to give them a bit of color. Of course, I HAD to use my least juiciest ink pad, so I foresee a CTMH order with a reinker included... Anyway, I used brown vinyl and used Lyrical Letters "Loop Dee Loo" font and cut out "The Hayfords" at 2.5" and everything else at 1". My inital plan was to have "EST 2005" above "The Hayfords"; however the board wasn't tall enough to do so, and therefore I improvised. The silver flourishes -they may be a bit difficult to see- were cut at 1.5" and they are from the Home Decor solutions cartridge. And I love the saying I added onto it.. because Jeff and I are both gamers, and I know if we did not have that in common, our relationship wouldn't be as good as it is. My biggest beef with this project isn't the paint, but the fact that some employee stuck the price tag on the FRONT AND CENTER part of the board! The paint didn't want to cover it very well. And again, I'm pretty sure that spray paint would solve my even coat issue, but nonetheless, I'm happy with how it turned out!
I really enjoyed working with vinyl. My only word of advice, if before you cut it out, test the cuts on paper before you load your vinyl up. This way, you'll know how it'll come out on the mat, and this will also let you know how much you'll need exactly; rather than eyeballing it or cutting out a full sheet of 12x12. This way, you can cut off what you need and save the scraps! And I think next time too, to save myself the headache, I will be investing in 12x24 mats so I can lay it out in design studio, and then lift it off the mat with the contact paper, versus trying to do it piece by piece by hand.. VERY frustrating with those curly letters! I still had fun though!
