Making it Black and White ~ House Rules Subway Sign

When you round the corner into our kitchen 

you will find, just at kid-eye-level, our house rules. 

I had them written on construction paper and taped up, 

but last week I created this more permanent declaration.  

I'm not one to apologize for being the mom in charge. 

I think it's kind of fun to have all that audacious authority up in black and white. 

It turns out the kids like seeing the rules on the wall too, 

and I've been getting lots of extra hugs these days!

I looked up subway-art online to get a sense of how to make a sign like this. 

Normally they list place-names, like these from Restoration Hardware. 

The trick to getting the look is in the slightly varying font size and spacing.

The first step to making my own was choosing a font 

and fooling around with spacing and size in a Word document. 

I used different text boxes for each line and increased the font size 

until the line spanned the width of the document (if that makes any sense).

After printing out my text, I glued it onto a sheet of contact paper to make sticky-stencil letters.

Then I cut out each little stinkin' letter. 

This got very tedious. 

I did it over the course of a few days.

I used some leftover pressed board from Lowe's that I had in my garage. 

I actually took the piece back to the store and asked them to cut it to the right size for me--so handy! 

The whole board had to be spray painted white before adding the rules.

I used a copy of my original Word document 

to guide my measuring and spacing for sticking on the contact-paper letters.

 I then painted over the whole thing with black spray paint. 

After that dried, I peeled up the letters, revealing the white paint from underneath.

The sign is attached to the side of our pantry cupboard using 3m strips.

 Our House Rules Subway Sign: 

the perfect combination of parental chutzpah, interior design, and craftiness. 

I'm linking this post to Funky Junk Interiors SNS #69 and Just A Girl.