Art to celebrate 40 years of nerd

My husband turned 40 last week (yep, I'm still in my 20's. trophy wife! woot! lol....ahem)

Picking out a gift to buy for him can be difficult, and we often either order or go out to get him something he really wants anyway. It can feel like the only way for me to really surprise and the manager of the checking account, amazon account, and credit card (this girl does NOT do numbers) is to make something special and unique. 

Enter this project I found on pinterest a while ago. As I fished around my brain for gift ideas while on a walk with my kids, I suddenly recalled this and knew which quote I wanted to do.  Tim has been a huge Star Wars fan since he was a kid, and has a collection of toys, figures, and memorabilia. When I first met his friends after we got engaged, they all asked me in hushed tones "but have you seen his star wars collection?..."

Fast forward eight years from then and nerd has gone the way of the beard and become stylish.
 

My first move was to find some art at the thrift store, and I snagged this big gallery print of the alps on a wooden canvas. 

Then vinyl letter stickers and spray paint at our new hobby lobby.

The idea is to stick your letters down where you want them, paint the whole thing, and peel the letters off, revealing the art beneath in the negative space. 

 

The thing about having young kids with no filter and an extra dose of enthusiasm is that you can't exactly let them in on a secret. Considering my kids never nap, and I don't get a break away from them until my husband is home, I couldn't work on this until the last minute. Like, the day I wanted to give it to him. 

So there I was on Friday afternoon, frantically trying to neatly arrange my letters (who the hell chose such a long quote? "Han shot first" never occur to you?) while getting kamikaze attacks from kids who decided that threats of spankings were worth braving for the opportunity to mess with poor mommy's letters. Hawthorne, who had been so angelic and sleepy while we were out buying supplies, was screaming bloody murder. 

There was a point at which I had managed to get most of the letters arranged and stuck on less straight than I preferred. As I swiped little probing hands away I thought "you know, I kind of like it like this. maybe I should just stop." But of course I didn't listen and hurried outside with my can of chartreuse paint to hose that thing down. What I didn't anticipate was a dud can of spray paint. 

Thank you so much krylon for the sputtering, dribbling, gasping can of sadness. Instead of spraying lightly over my piece of art, it made a huge mess. I had it dripping from my hands, and pools of it were forming all around my vinyl letters, degrading the adhesive and peeling them up around the edges. The whole project was disintegrating before my eyes. 

My original plan was to do most of it in chartreuse, but to color block two triangles in the right corners with matte black. I had only gotten a tiny can of that because I didn't expect to do much with it. But I thought that it might be able to save my project if I went over the whole thing with it. I was sort of right. It did a great job of covering over the horrible dribbly green, but then.....ran out 2/3 of the way across the painting. On the verge of frustrated tears, and out of time (daddy's home!) I stuck the stupid thing in the garage and told Tim I had ruined his birthday gift. It turned out nothing like what I imagined.  

But when I showed him he was completely surprised and delighted with what I had come up with for him. He asked where we were hanging it and what I had to do to make me want to display it. There weren't enough vinyl letters left to stick them on and paint back over the whole thing so I just balanced out the - er - urban? look by adding more green on the right side. It certainly looks scummy and villainous, so I guess it works. 

Not my original vision, but still pretty unique and fun. You now see it on the wall as you arrive on our main living floor. Not your usual welcome sign, but at least people know what they're in for! 

Happy birthday to my hot nerd!