Life in Herring Hollow: Inspired Stairs

After seeing inspirational words painted onto stairs on Pinterest, I've been dying to give it a try on my own staircase. I am so excited with the results! Just in case you want to give it a whirl, I decided to give a little tutorial on how I did it. I combined two ideas that I found on - of course - Pinterest. I take no credit for any of these ideas! I just put them together to get the results I wanted and it worked!

1. The hardest task of all is deciding what to write on your stairs, wall, etc. You will also need a small container of water, a sponge, an artist's paintbrush that has a smooth, rounded end (handle), tape, and a paint pen (color of your choice).

2. Use a printing program to choose the font and size of the words you want. I just played around with it, printing out samples until I got the size right.

3. With whatever printing program you are using, there should be a way to flip the text backwards before you print. THE TEXT MUST BE FLIPPED BACKWARDS BEFORE YOU PRINT. Sometimes you can go into the print options of a program and choose the mirror image option. This will flip it for you when it prints out.

4. You should print with the highest ink quality using a printer that sprays the ink onto the paper, like an ink jet. Printers that print with a dry ink will not work.

5. Once you have your words printed out, trim them down to a manageable size. Arrange and tape them with some painter's tape or whatever you have on hand to the surface you want to transfer the words onto. The ink should be facing the surface on which you want the words to transfer.

6. Use a damp, but not soaking, sponge and apply pressure. Do not rub the sponge around. Make sure it soaks through the paper. Once you have soaked through the paper, take the smooth, rounded back side of a paint brush and gently start scratching the paper on top of the words. You don't want to tear through the paper.

7. Once you have thoroughly scratched each letter from the paper, carefully remove the wet paper. You should have an imprint of the ink lettering on your surface. Allow it time to dry completely.