Welcome Rock

Having a townhouse has been a great adventure so far.  I love the freedom it gives me to paint any colour I want, and Ty's happy he doesn't have to mow the lawn.  One of my favourite features of our house is our front door.  We have 8 stairs leading up to our front door and a nice little porch. 

And it's one more place I get to decorate!

So I got this idea in my head, "hey, wouldn't it be cool to find a big ole rock and write something on it to welcome people to our front door?"  So out I went looking for a big enough rock to make a statement on our front porch.

FOUND IT! 

I found this rock on an empty lot in our neighbourhood. 

It was so heavy I needed Ty to come pick it up in the car!

Next up, the word.  I picked "Welcome", that seemed obvious enough.  I printed it out on regular printer paper first, but knew that wasn't strong enough to stand up to spray paint.  So I traced the letters from the printer paper onto poster board for a stronger, sturdier stencil.  Cutting out these letters with my craft knife was the longest and worst part of the whole endeavour!

Once I cut out all the letters and saved the middles of the e's and o, I had to find a way to attach the stencil to the rock and still be able to remove it.  I used Scotch Tape- a lot of scotch tape (I think masking tape might work better)

Next, try to make the scotch tape stick to the rock..ah ha ha ha!

I recomend making a cut on a diagonale from the corners to the centre to allow the paper to fold over the rock.  It will help keep the stencil on the rock, somewhat.

Then, spray paint.  Light coats, far away from the stencil.  If you get too close and it runs, it will get inbetween the letters, making them unreadable.  Also, try to do this all in one day.  I tried to do a second coat on another day.

Reattaching the stencil = not the best idea.

Let dry and remove the stencil!

I knew spray painting in this way wasn't going to give me the clearest image (like on my garbage can) so, fabric puff paint to the rescue!!! 

I did think about outlining it in hot pink...but a boy lives here too!

I quite like how it turned out.  I think I will leave it pink for a while and then eventually paint it black to match the outlining. 

Now I just need Ty to haul it from the backyard up to the front door!

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