Subway Art

Blogger Jennifer Hadfield of “Tatertots and Jello” explains how.

I have been a little obsessed with Subway Art over the past year or so. It all started when Pottery Barn came out with this canvas:

I was in love! I made plans to immediately make one. Of course life got in the way and it wasn’t until February that I actually did and I made a few for Valentines-themed ones:

Since then, I have had another Subway Art project in mind. I even found a frame at Ross on clearance for $10 that I thought would be perfect! And then it sat in my office languishing while I worked on other projects. So when Studio 5 asked me to show how to create custom Subway Art, I was so excited to finish that project and talk about a type of look that is so bold and striking.

For this new subway project, I thought I would try a new technique. I had a roll of vinyl contact paper and thought I would try cutting the letters out using that medium.

The first thing I did was take the board out of the back of the frame and I painted it. If you don’t have a frame you can use a sheet of thin plywood or mdf. Once the board was painted, I made my words. I used the addresses of all of the places that we have lived since we’ve been married. I used my Silhouette machine to make and cut out the letters.

If you have a Cricut you can use that machine to cut out the letters too. If you don’t have any of those machines you can create your words on your computer (use Ariel font) and then print them off the computer and use spray adhesive to stick them onto the contact paper. Then use an exacto knife to cut out the letters.

I used a t-square to make the letters even. The trickiest was putting the almost invisible letters on the board so they were straight. It took quite a bit of time. Once they were on the board, I smoothed all of the edges of the letters to make sure they had a good seal.

Then I took the board back outside and spray painted the whole board black. When that was dry, I splattered some white paint on the board and used a small brush to make some smudges on the edges of the board so it resembled the Pottery Barn picture.

Then I brought the board inside and peeled the letters off. Then I put a thin coat of clear polyurethane over the top.

And now I have a cool piece of art that has all of our homes on it!

Jennifer Hadfield loves all things creative and new. She loves making something beautiful out of nothing – remake is her style! She is a family gal who loves meeting new friends.