So Christmas is nearing and I'm rummaging through my brain what to get everyone! Money is tight with a young family and another addition on the horizon so I'm leaning towards making things for family and friends. I've always loved crafts and think its wonderful giving someone something you've put your time, thoughts and love into rather than just swiping another item on to the credit card especially during the season of good will.
A friend of ours has recently had a newborn (congratulations to Heather & Al) on the arrival of baby Lucas! He is simply adorable! I was delving into idea of making my own word art having seen some beautiful pieces online that I just can't afford. So this was the perfect opportunity to have a go and make something unique in good prep for my festive crafting ventures.
Firstly I had a google of 'word art' to see what its all about. Word art is using words, dates, places significant to you and transforming them into a shape or symbol of your choice to create something you can put on the wall as a piece of art you've made.
I'm a complete novice so I had a search for a programme or software that could help me create my art. This is when I came across Tagxedo. (If you don't get on with Tagxedo there are other word art generators online including worditout and wordle amongst others)
Tagxedo is really straight forward to use, there are options to change fonts, colour schemes, words, and most importantly you can upload your own shape, so only your imagination is a barrier in creating whatever you desire on Tagxedo. If you want to keep things simple though you can stick to an array of set templates, including a footprint, heart, star, apple, dove and many more!
Here is the Tagxedo 'create' page. You can click on Load... to enter your own words.
(Tips: separate words with a comma, use ~to keep words together I.e Husband~and~Wife, to enable use of numbers click on Options> Word/ Layout options> Word> Numbers> yes)
I wanted to make a family tree of life, so I found a template image of a tree I liked online and uploaded this.
(Tip: options> shape> add image)
I wanted an autumnal look to reflect the season so choose browns, yellows and reds for my colour scheme. I choose to use names, date of birth/ arrival, and themes such as family, love, mummy, daddy & son to make it personal.
Once Tagxedo has created your word art you can save it in numerous sizes. I saved mine in the largest size possible so that the image was great quality and then resized it down to A4 dimensions in Photoshop.
You can leave your artwork here and print it of and mount it or you want to can customise it even further. I decided to add some autumnal leaves to mine and some cute little tweet birds nestling in the branches. This was all done in Photoshop (my best friend for a lot of my milestone and keepsake arts)
Once I was happy with my artwork I sent it over to my local printers to be printed on a laserjet, they print on a gorgeous 250gsm paper and the colours are very vibrant.
Some of the branches on my tree needed joining so some gem stickers from hobbycraft helped complete the look. Again autumnal colours including golds and green were used to keep in theme. You can buy these in little packs of 100+ pieces for £2 :) the ones I got were sticky backed so you just press them into place firmly.
Once your artwork is complete and you're happy with it pop it into a frame. I used a plain white frame that can be standing or mounted to the wall. Perfect for a new nursery!
The beauty of wall art is you can make it whatever you want it to be. You choose the words, the design and shape so the possibility for gifts is endless. Because they're personalised they're are all unique and so much fun to design.
The only downside is Tagxedo requires you to have a commercial license if you wish to sell your designs, they do offer this on a one off basis or per project basis if you contact them directly.
This one was my first piece and only took me a day to make from scratch, and that's whilst learning how to navigate the software.
I'm really pleased with it :)
What do you think?
Keep your eyes peeled for more craft ideas and updates coming soon...
