Here’s a fun project I did a few weeks ago on my friend Jen of Tatertots and Jello blog and thought I would share it with you today! It’s an homage to those vintage NYC subway signs. It’s pretty cool how something vintage-inspired can turn out so modern! Let’s get started!
For this project you’ll need:
– 1 large pumpkin (I picked up a faux one at Michaels)
– various medium to large sized scrapbook stickers (I got mine in the craft section at Michaels)
– large vinyl stickers
– black spray paint
– sandpaper
You’ll want to start off by peeling off your stickers and attaching them to your pumpkin in the subway art fashion, spacing the words a similar width across. It doesn’t matter the color of these stickers as you will be spray painting over top of them. I actually found that several of them lost some of their stick, so I ran it through a Xyron sticker machine to make them sticker. Also, if you have an electronic sticker die-cutting machine and want to give it a go, you can; however, I don’t know if the results will be the same.
Your letters should look something like this before you begin to spray paint. Make sure to firmly press them in place before spray painting.
Lay your pumpkin with the words face up and lightly mist the spray paint on top giving good, even coverage. This will help keep the spray paint from seeping under any of the stickers. Let dry a few minutes. Go back and give it a second coat if needed.
Now lay the pumpkin on it’s base and spray paint the back and sides thoroughly.
When the pumpkin is dry, carefully remove the letters. I noticed that a few of my letters did get a little paint shadowing, but in the spirit of it looking distressed, it just added to the feel!
Now take a fine grit sandpaper and lightly rub around pumpkin, distressing it a bit. This will give it a battered/worn look. I even did it over the letters for an aged look.
And here’s a detail of the words up close. I think it turned out really cool!
You can mix and match up your words to suit you, you could make it more fall words or family words, whatever you like!
Until next time Swellions!
Alexa
