Military Subway Art - Tutorial

 

Last week my Aunt threw a homecoming party for my cousin, who has been in the Air Force for the past 4 years.  He has completed his service and is finally back home!  I wanted to give him a gift... something that he could always look at and be reminded of the service he provided to our country.

 

Subway Art was my first thought!  My husband and I compiled a list of words that we thought suited him (and someone in the military), next we got a list of all the places that he was stationed in the past 4 years, along with his first and last date of service.

I created the template on my Silhouette Cameo.  I played with the fonts, sizes and direction until I had the layout exactly how I wanted it.

I like filling in the words with colors, instead of just looking at stencils/outlines.  It give me a better idea of how the finished product will look :)

The fonts I used were: 1) Stencil  2) Braggadocio  3) American Typewriter  4) LW Headline  5) SNF Petite Hand  (#1-3 are fonts provided in the Silhouette and # 4-5 were purchase from the Silhouette online store)

Next, I got my wood, paint and brush and got to work.

After the paint dried, I took some sand paper and sanded the whole thing a bit, especially around the edges.  Sand it as little or as much as you think looks right for your project (sorry, I forgot to take a picture after sanding it).

While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I cut my template out and got it all ready to transfer.  Since I was using 2 different colors, I cut 2 separate templates

1) the whole pattern in black vinyl

2) just the 5 words in tan vinyl

Since I didn't want some of the words (in black) to transfer, I laid some paper over them, so I could transfer all the other letters.

This was how it looked after the 1st layer was done.

Next, I placed the tan layer right on top and lined up the letters with the blank spaces and transferred them next.

All done.  

Time to make the next one

Yes, I made two 

I thought that my Aunt would like one (probably more) than my cousin would.  haha

Additional Info: To be honest, I had some trouble getting the vinyl to stick to the wood, I think it was because I tried to place the vinyl too soon after sanding the wood - there must have been a thin layer of dust that was preventing the transfer.  Anyhow, my remedy was this:  After sanding it, I applied a thin layer or Mod Podge, let it dry, then applied the vinyl.  After the vinyl was placed, I then put another thin layer of Mod Podge down over all the letters.  Once all the letters were placed, I applied another 2 coats of Mod Podge over the whole project to ensure that none of the letters would fall off, plus it gave it a nice finished look that I really liked.

I'd love to hear any troubles & remedies you'd have when trying to apply vinyl too!

(to see where I've linked up - click here!)