Room Names at Albany House

While I was staying with my sister and brother-in-law, I did a few little projects around the Bed & Breakfast. One of the hard things about running this type of business is that you need to keep very busy during the busy seasons so you will have enough income to tide you over the slow times.  If you are busy with the day to day cooking and cleaning, it is hard to find time for "extra" projects.  One of the projects that I was able to help with was to identify the guest rooms so it would be easier for the guests to be sure they were in the right room when they first go upstairs.

Before I left on my trip I did some work with my Gypsy and Design Studio.  I wanted to weld the letters of the room names so that they would be easier to apply to the doors.  My first trial was done with the Gypsy Font cartridge (only available in the Gypsy).  I thought it looked OK but the "feel" of the letters was not quite in keeping with the style of the B & B.

 Next I tried this font from the Songbird cartridge.  This one looked like a keeper so I set  up a file to cut the vinyl.  I made the words 2 1/2 inches tall.

I had sheets of 12 x 24 vinyl and I decided to do each name twice so I would have a backup in case something went wrong when the names were applied to the doors.  The extra exclamation points were for the apostrophe in "Eagle's Nest" and the extra "l"s were for another project.

To cut the vinyl I used the regular blade set at 3 with medium speed and pressure.  This makes a "kiss cut" so the letter is cut out but the backing sheet stays intact.  The vinyl cuts very cleanly and I was able to put the words quite close together with no problems in  cutting.

I brought the cut vinyl (still on the backing sheet) and some transfer tape with me on the trip to Wisconsin.

After CHA, I had some time to work on applying the names to the doors.  I cut apart all of the words and "weeded" the sections (weeding is the process of removing all of the unnecessary pieces of vinyl from the backing sheet).  The "hook" tool in the Cricut tool kit works very well to do this.

I always feel like I should save the scraps but the Cricut Vinyl is very thin and sticky and it is too difficult to keep the pieces from adhering to each other.  I want a clean and easy word application so I sacrificed the excess vinyl.

I applied the transfer tape to the weeded words...

...and then gently peeled back the word from the original vinyl backing sheet. To keep everything in order, I put the tape with the vinyl back on the transfer tape backing sheet until it was time to add the names to the doors.

 I simply lifted the words on the transfer tape and centered the words on each door.  Then I burnished the vinyl area and made sure that the names were securely attached.

The rooms with the short names were simple to do.

For the two word names I took extra care to line up the words.  You could use painter's tape to set a straight line but it is fairly easy to "eyeball" the placement.

Vinyl is fun to work with and it cuts very easily and neatly.  You do have to be careful to keep the packages up and away from small hands.

With a very small investment in materials and a slightly larger investment of time,  I was able to create these identifiers for each of the guest rooms.

 Today was a "re-entry day" for me - there is always so much to do and to catch up with after a long trip.  I have moved all of the crafty items to my studio and now need to put them away and to photograph some more of the workshop projects.

 A few people let me know that a photo of me and my friend Joe was on the DCWV blog.  We were in the Halloween Advent Calendar workshop and when this photo was taken we were working on the little pockets that hang from the embroidery hoop frame and hold either a trick or a treat.  Since I am always behind the camera it was nice to see this "action shot" of myself from the show.  The class was a lot of fun and I will assemble my calendar and show you how it turned out a bit later this fall.


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