Fail No. 1- Song Lyric Wall Art

I didn’t think I could go wrong with this one. “A Beautiful Mess” makes this project look so easy. I thought for sure this was going to be the focal point hanging haughtily on my wall.

This hanging wall print requires very little in terms of supplies and skill. However, I still managed to fuck it up.

• An old paint by number or vintage painting that you like, but not one that you adore.
• Letter stickers, this blogger just so happened to find Helvetica, 2” Black Noir Vinyl Letters.
• Paint, brushes and scissors

Lets figure out where I went wrong.

First of all, an old paint by number? Really, in all my thrifting I’ve never seen a paint by number for sale. Since I don’t have a paint by number, and I decided to do this project on a whim, a page from a magazine will be my canvas. Helvetica stickers? My local Joann fabrics isn’t cool enough to sell Helvetica Vinyl letters, the best I could do was “Alphabet Stickers” in black. If I had to guess I would say the stickers I have are font “Calibri”, the most basic, unhipster font of all. (But its better than Comic Sans, amiright?). Paint is my saving grace. I have paint, its cheap paint but its perfectly fine paint. Now, lastly a paintbrush. Since I take awful care of all my things, I have to make a bargin with my fiance that I will return his brush clean and in one piece. Now that I have all my supplies, lets get started!

Shout out to Volkswagen for sending me “Das Auto” Magazine month after month. Above you can see my Calibri letters arranged and ready to go. I chose a lyric from “First Day of my Life” by Bright Eyes. Check it out. At this point in the project I’m feeling pretty good.

Step 2 is where things start to go astray. The paper immediately starts to bend and become saturated with paint. At one point I honestly thought, hmm…maybe its supposed to do this. Please note my paint strokes going in every which direction.

I am not a patient person. The original blogger recommends letting this hot mess dry on your porch for an hour. A. ain’t nobody got time for that, and B. that would require me to go downstairs. Moreover, I decided to let it dry for a good 15 min before moving on to the next step.

As you can see from the image above, this is not working. The stickers are so saturated the top layer is peeling off leaving the sticky residue behind. If only I had those goddamn Helvetica Vinyl letters. I spend the next 10 minutes trying to carefully peel off the letters, but for what? This is ultimately going to end up in the trash. Yet again proving that I can destroy the most basic of crafts. Lets take a look at the finished project!

Well would you look at that! Conor Oberst would be so proud, I’m really doing his beautiful lyrics justice.

Is it so bad that all I want in life is to be a successful crafter? Its not my fault I’m impulsive and have 0 skills. I just want to be exceptional at everything I do with no planning, preparation, or research. It’s a miracle I actually took the time to complete this entry. Stay tuned for more awesome DIY crafts.

Difficulty: Easy

Cost: Cheap

Time: 30-40 minutes including dry time

Frustration Level: Mild