A teacher headed back to the classroom, Shirley from These Moments of Mine wanted to create a modern, motivational piece of artwork to inspire her students.
The premade, “reach for the stars” type posters just weren’t going to cut it.
Shirley nabbed a canvas on sale, painted it black, and then carefully applied her quote in vinyl.
A coat of Mod Podge sealed all her hard work.
Hopefully, some of Shirley’s students will be impacted by these powerful words.
Shirley was inspired by the This Little Light Antique Sign created by Sugarboo Designs and sold by The Bray Gallery.
And yes for a hefty price we won’t even discuss!
While Shirley’s site is no longer available, I’ll include her original tutorial here:
In two weeks I’ll be headed back into the classroom. I’ve always wanted to hang a modern motivational art piece in there but everything I find is so expensive.
And I really don’t like the familiar “Reach for the stars” type of educational posters.
While at Joann’s the other day (yes I am there at least twice a week), I noticed their canvas boards were on sale for 40% off. Light bulb moment! I purchased a 15″ x 30″ canvas for only $9.60.
I painted the canvas black (to my daughter’s complete disgust).
Then I selected a quote I thought might mean something to my students. I settled on the famous quote by Marianne Williamson.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Whoa! That quote is way too long!
So I cut it short and typed it out in Word. Then I pieced the lines so they would all be about the same length.
Next I used my Silhouette (LOVE HER!) to cut the lines of text out on white vinyl.
Once all the text was cut, I laid it out on my canvas, this really was the hardest part. I kept having to rearrange the text to make it straight (or at least 96% straight).
Once they were straight I rubbed the vinyl text onto the canvas. What a relief when that was done!
My final step was to seal it all with a coat of Mod Podge.
Yes, much better than a poster.
