DIY Week: Make your own personalized poster.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

I've been seeing lots of art recently that revolves around words and cities. I love it. Here are a couple examples:

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I decided I wanted to make one for Chicago, but a little more personal than just the famous landmarks.

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I started out by finding a frame in my craft closet that I wanted to use. It was 12"x 16", so I went to Photoshop and created a blank document with those same dimensions. To give it a polished look without having to add a matte, I gave it a thick white border, then made a rectangle in blue. Then I listed lots of favorite spots in Chicago - some famous ones, others that are just more personal. Yep, Argo and Grand Lux made it to the list, along with the address of our first apartment. Not things you'd see on any Chicago list which is what I love.

The cool thing is, I really don't think it's necessary to have Photoshop to do this project. If you have a color printer, you could do something like this in a Word document.

Next, I translated it into a PDF file, put it on a zip drive, and had it printed at FedEx Office in a 12" by 16" size. It only cost $1.94!

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Finally, I trimmed the edges and framed it.

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The colors are hard to see, but here's the original file (and what it looks like in person):

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I think I'm going to have to do one for Nashville soon... :)

13 comments:

  1. I love this idea! How did you get the words to mold around eachother when using photoshop?

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  2. Sarah, I just created separate text boxes for all the different words or groupings of words, then placed them spaced out. Does that make sense?

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  3. I LOVE this.... now I have another project added to my list! :)

    thanks for the inspiration to be crafty

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  4. Yes, that does make sense. Thank you!

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  5. Love this! and ALL of your posts. I have to refrain myself from commenting on nearly everyone. :) I started reading a few months ago--your cousin Jenna A. (we went to high school together) told me that I just had to check out her super cute cousin's blog. So glad she shared it with me!

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  6. Girl I swear there is NOTHING crafty that you cannot do. I love it.

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  7. I love this... Whenever I get my own space, I'm going to have to do like, 4 or 5 of them... I feel like this would make a great series for a feature wall.

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  8. Oh my gosh, I love it. I'd make one almost the same as yours, with a few differences. Hmm....

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  9. Thank you so much for this. I created my own personalized poster last week and I'm in love with it! I'm planning on posting it on my blog soon and would love to link to your blog if you don't mind! Thanks for the inspiration and the help!

    Lindsay

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  10. I was wondering, can you email the template to me? Is it possible to change the words? I just cannot figure out Photoshop right now! :) I LOVE THIS and will give you ALL the credit!

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  11. LOVE. I will have to do this for Cleveland and Columbus, OH! I love your blog. It's so creative and I'm enjoying those DIY projects to save money!

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  12. my boyfriend and I have been moving around a lot (thanks Army), and I've decided I'm going to do one of these for every place we live including one for each of our hometowns (Anchorage, AK and Humboldt Co., CA)...thanks so much for the idea and instructions, Whitney! I've had photoshop ever since I took a Digital photo class in college but I never would have thought to use it for something like this :)

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  13. I just happened upon your blog and I love it! Very creative and cute ideas!

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