I've always had a super hard time decorating my walls. The last couple years especially so, as I've worked to curb my tendency to over-buy home decor by waiting for something I really love that is a good fit for the space. But I also wait something that is affordable (thrift stores are my jam) and it often takes me quite a while to hit that sweet spot where beautiful meets affordable. Which, for me, sometimes results in empty walls for years at a time. I mean, we've lived here over five years and we still have several blank walls! BUT I was finally able to fill one empty space in our home library with this sweet sign language alphabet poster!
I spent ages trying to decide what I even wanted to hang in there - since it's our main homeschool space, I knew I wanted something that would be educational, but still beautiful. As I'm learning to better embrace my roll as the keeper of our home, I really want to create spaces that are beautiful, comfortable, and useful for my family! When I came across the idea of a sign language alphabet poster, I knew it could be just what I was looking for.
Now I've seen sign language posters before, but none of them were, well, cute. In fact I found several free printable options on pinterest, but none of them had the cute factor I was looking for. And while I found a few beautiful posters with the more simple style I wanted, none of them fell into the budget I was looking for (the cheap-to-crazy-cheap range). So I decided to make my own! And I turned it into a printable so you can make one too!
You have two options - print the full-size poster at your favorite poster-printing place, or print it on your home printer and piece it together.
**The poster is designed to fit an 18x24 frame. You could shrink it down to fit a smaller frame, but I can't vouch for the print quality if you try to make it larger.
Option 1:
This option is great if you don't have easy access to a place that prints posters, or if you want to save a few dollars. Print it out on your home printer and cut off the margins from each page (they are marked by the boxes in the corners). It should look basically like this, but this is before I cut the margins off. You shouldn't see any white and the pages shouldn't overlap:
Now, you still have two options for this method! So many choices today, guys! You can use an 18x24 piece of foam board, mat board, plwyood, a canvas, etc as the base and use modpodge or spray adhesive to basically decoupage the pieces onto the base. Do people still decoupage? They should! Put down a thin layer of modpodge or spray adhesive and apply the pieces to the base, being careful to line those edges up for minimal seams! One it dries you can seal it with a topcoat of modpodge or spray sealer.
If you want to make sure there are no seams, you can use the other more labor-intensive method that I used. Tape the pieces together to create a large piece and hang it in a window (or if you're fancy enough to have a light table you can use that). But windows are free and work great, plus this will count as your arm workout for the day:
Tape an 18x24" piece of poster board centered over the sign language alphabet, then use a extra fine tip sharpie to trace the alphabet onto the poster board. It will look super sharp when you're done and won't have any seams! You can practice on a piece of printer paper before you start to make sure you like the sharpie, and try different pens if not. And there's no shame in taking a break when your arms get wobbly from being up so long.
It's hard to really see the comparison in this photo, but the poster board gives the final product a might higher-end finish than the printer paper!
Frame it up. Hang it up. You're done!
It took a little more work, but I ended up with a poster I love for a price I love!
- $2 - garage sale frame
- $1 - poster board
- $0 - sharpie I already had
Total - $3
Let me know if you give it a try!
P.S. I added some sign language merch to my etsy shop! Check it out:
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