Kids' wall quote

Inspired by an item on Etsy featuring a quote by Shel Silverstein and unwilling to fork over the dough for a few vinyl letters, I decided to replicate the effect myself. First, the quote I used:

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be."

You'll notice that I got a few apostrophes incorrect in the finished product, lets just hope the kid is better at grammar than I.


What we're going to do is create a wall sized print of the quote, cut out the letters, tape it to the wall and sponge paint the quote on. NOTE: If you want something that looks perfect, look elsewhere (like Etsy) and let someone else do your work for you.






Print it big There are a few ways to do this, I used Block Posters, but there are others like Rasterbator. I'd suggest trying both to determine which gives you the best output. You can use an image found online or create your own. I used Photoshop and exported as a PDF, but that's not necessary. Word or any other word processor should work fine, you just might be limited in font placement. Each of the above services will allow you to choose how large to make the result.


Cut it out This is the most difficult part, and your font choice and quote length directly effect how long this is going to take. In fact, it took me so long that I took a hiatus in the middle of working on this project... I'd suggest choosing simpler fonts. Go buy yourself a brand new craft knife and cut out all the letters on each page. Leave little tabs in the O's and other letters that will lose pieces otherwise. If you have any letters that cross pages it's best to leave them to later. Tape all of the pages together one row at a time and finish cutting out any of the letters left behind.


Tape it up Take your fully assembled quote and tape it to the wall (do a better job of leveling your quote than I, okay?). 


Paint it I used some left-over can of flat black paint I had on hand. It won't take much so you might be able to just get a small sample for free from the paint store and use that. If we had any of the wall color left over I might have mixed some of the black in with it to make a more subtle effect. Hold a set of letters close to the wall and sponge paint them on, you're going to have a little bleed as the paint runs under the paper. Spray paint may work better here if you want a clean edge. Always use zero VOC paints in a kids' room. Pull the stencil away from the wall as you go along, you don't want the paper drying to the wall. Finish the entire quote and peel the stencil off the wall. Done!


Good luck.