Dimensional Name Art

Check out my latest name art project! It's hard to tell in the scan, but the letters are popped up off the page. It's really cool, if I do say so myself. And it was really fun to make. 

Here's a picture from the side that shows the dimension a little better:

Read on to make your own! Affiliate links below. 

Dimensional Name Art

Materials: 

• paper
• scissors
• removable adhesive
• acrylic paint
• stencils, stamps, sponges, plastic fork, etc. 
• black foam adhesive

Steps: 

Cut out the letters of your name... 

... and then use removable / repositionable adhesive to attach them to the background paper. 

Use a sponge to pounce paint onto the paper. Work up and down - avoid any sideways swiping that would disturb the letters or get paint underneath them. 

Continue adding paint on top using stencils, stamps, a plastic fork, or anything else you have on hand. For my project, I used a hexagon stencil (purple), a circle stamp (blue), a small piece of sponge (orange), and the fork (grey). While you don't need to cover every tiny space, you want each letter to have different patterns and colors. 

Let the paint dry, then carefully remove the letters. Fill in the spaces where the letters were with black paint. 

Add foam adhesive to the back of each of the letters. When the black paint is dry, adhere each letter just a millimeter lower and to the right of where it was. This will allow a little bit of the black paint to show, making the letters pop. 

I loved making this project and am excited to add it to my (large) collection of name art for kids!

State Name Art: Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Dakota

It's Round 3 of State Name Art! This time, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, and South Dakota. As before, I love how different they each are. It's great fun figuring out how to place the letters of the state in its silhouette, then deciding what scene to add. Affiliate links below. 

State Name Art

Materials:

• Bristol vellum
• Flair pens
• colored pencils
• microtip scissors
• colored cardstock
• glue stick

Steps: 

Print or trace the outline of the state onto paper. I like to use Bristol vellum when working with colored pencils. I made the outlines using graphics from PicMonkey, but you could also draw or trace your own outline. 

Use a pencil to sketch in the letters of the state. Sketch lightly so you can make adjustments if necessary. Some letters will have missing parts or distortions; that's not a problem as long as the state name is legible. Outline the letters with a Flair pen, then color in all spaces that aren't part of the name.  

Lightly sketch a scene across the white space of the letters, choosing an image that represents the state. When you are happy with what you've sketched, fill it in with colored pencils. I drew a horse in a pasture for Kentucky...

... Gateway Arch for Missouri...

... sunset over the mountains for New Hampshire...

... and a buffalo grazing for South Dakota. 

Cut out the state and glue it to colored construction paper. 

I'm continuing to have a lot of fun with these. This makes 12, which is a far cry from 50. I'll keep taking them four at a time until it's not fun anymore.

State Name Art: Kansas, Delaware, Iowa, and Nevada

I finished a second batch of State Name Art. This time, I made Kansas, Nevada, Delaware, and Iowa. I love how they're completely different from each other and from the four I previously made. Affiliate links below. 

 

State Name Art

Materials:

• Bristol vellum
• Flair pens
• colored pencils
• white Posca pen (Nevada)
• microtip scissors
• colored cardstock
• glue stick

Steps: 

Print or trace the outline of a state onto paper. (Bristol vellum is my favorite when working with colored pencils.) I made the outlines using the graphics on PicMonkey, but there are plenty of places to find outlines. Students can draw their own outlines or use pre-prepared tracers. 

Use a pencil to very lightly sketch in the letters of the state. Make adjustments until you are happy with the letters. Some letters may be distorted or have missing parts; that's perfectly fine as long as the state name is legible. Outline the letters with a Flair pen, then color in all spaces that aren't part of the name.  

Lightly sketch a scene across the white space of the letters that represents the state. When you are happy with what you've sketched, fill it in with colored pencils. I did sunflowers for Kansas...

... the beach for Delaware...

... a cornfield for Iowa...

... and a night sky in Nevada. After coloring this scene with colored pencils, I used a Posca pen to add the stars. 

Cut out the state and glue it to colored construction paper. 

I had a lot of fun with this latest batch of states. Figuring out each one is very satisfying. As I said before, I have no intention of doing all 50, but I'll keep going for now! 

State Name Art: Ohio, Idaho, Montana, and Maine

It's no secret that I love name art. Over the years, I've shared 47 unique ideas for creative projects using my name (or yours, if you aren't named Cindy). Today's craft is a little different because it features the names of states inside their silhouettes. This would be such a fun project to do with a class of 4th graders studying their home state, or with fifth graders who are each working on a different state report.

For my samples, I chose four states with distinct shapes to see how well my idea would work. I started with what I thought would be the easiest (Ohio) and worked my way toward the most challenging (Maine). It took a bit of creativity to fit the names legibly, but figuring it out was so much fun! I'm really happy with how these turned out. Affiliate links below.  

 

State Name Art

Materials:

• Bristol vellum
• Flair pens
• colored pencils
• microtip scissors
• colored cardstock
• glue stick

Steps: 

Print or trace the outline of a state onto Bristol vellum, or the paper of your choice. (Bristol vellum is my favorite when working with colored pencils.) I made the outlines using PicMonkey graphics, but there are a lot of places to find outlines. You can also have students draw their own outlines or use pre-prepared tracers. 

Use a pencil to LIGHTLY sketch in the letters of the state. Make adjustments until you are happy with the letters. Don't be afraid to have missing parts of letters (like the M in Montana) or distorted letters (like the E in Maine) as long as the state name is legible. Outline the letters with a Flair pen, then color in all spaces that aren't part of the letters.  

LIGHTLY sketch a scene across the white space that represents the state. When you are happy with it, fill it in with colored pencils. I chose fields and a classic red barn for Ohio...

... forests and a mountain for Idaho...

... a sunset behind the mountains for Montana... 

... and a lighthouse on a rocky shore for Maine. 

When you are done coloring, cut out the state and glue it to colored construction paper. 

I had so much fun making these that I will definitely be doing more! I have no intention to do all 50; I learned just how much work it is when I colored in all 50 state quarters coloring pages. It took me eight months, working on four at a time. On the other hand, never say never! 

Christmas Name Art

Turn on the holiday music and challenge the kids to turn the letters in their names into Christmas icons. Like all good name art projects, this works with any name and is a fun and creative activity. Affiliate links below. 

Christmas Name Art

Materials:

• Neenah Bristol Vellum
• Ohuhu Kaala Illustration markers
• Sakura fineliner

Steps: 

Use a pencil to lightly write your name in block letters on a piece of bristol vellum. Sketch in details to turn each letter into something associated with Christmas. I made my C into a candy cane, the I into a snowman, the N into gingerbread, the D into a gift, and the Y into an oddly skinny Santa. Other ideas include: an elf, snow on a chimney top, an angel, a reindeer, a sugar cookie, or tree lights. Certain letters are perfect for specific shapes, like a stocking for J or a Christmas tree for A. Feel free to mix upper- and lowercase letters to get the shapes you want. Anything goes!

Once you are happy with your design, color it in. Erase any stray pencil marks, then outline your design with a fineliner. 

Chemist Halloween Costume

This year, I dressed as a chemist for Halloween. 

 

That's my own front porch. Rather than open the door repeatedly as trick-or-treaters showed up, I thought it would be more fun to just hang out on the porch to pass out candy. And indeed it was. The trick-or-treaters loved my set-up and had lots of questions about the mystery liquids, the test tubes, and letters on my sign. I loved watching them choose their candy from petri dishes. I chatted with parents and was much more involved with my neighbors than if I'd stayed inside and just opened the door when people knocked. 

I'm really pleased with my name badge and candy sign. I used PicMonkey to create the images, printed them, then backed them with cardstock. I slid the CINDy into a badge holder and I folded the CaNDy into a table tent. 

I'm fortunate that I can spell my name with elements from the periodic table. Steve was disappointed to learn that he can't. Neither can Trevor. My mom (KAtHY), my sister (KArI), nephew (TiMoThY), niece (AlLiSON), and mother-in-law (PAt) all can. 

If you are interested in dressing up as a chemist, here's a supply list to get you started. Affiliate links below. 

Chemistry Costume and Porch Decorations

Materials: 

• periodic table t-shirt
• lab coat
• lab goggles
• plastic flasks
• plastic petri dishes
• plastic test tubes
• periodic table reference cards
• food color

This costume was so much fun! I'm going to have to start thinking now about how I can top it next year. 

All About Me Magazine Name Art

Back-to-school is the perfect time for name art. Today's project lets kids introduce who they are through words and images cut from a magazine. The project incorporates reading skills (a great opportunity to practice scanning) with fine motor skills, a combination you don't find together often. 

All About Me Name Art

Materials: 

• magazines
• scissors
• construction paper or cardstock
• glue sticks

Steps: 

Select a magazine for your project. It should have plenty of large, colorful images, as well as lots of text. Good choices include magazines about travel, cooking, or nature. Special interest magazines can work too. I used the Visit California guide. 

Start by tearing out large images from the magazine that appeal to you. You'll need as many as there are letters in your name. Set them aside for now. 

Write your name in block letters on scratch paper and cut them out. You do not need to cut out the counters if you don't want to. I opted to leave them for the D and the Y in my name in order to give me more space for my words. 

Arrange the cut-out letters on the images you've chosen, moving each letter around to decide where it looks best. Then cut out the letters. You can see below that I wanted to incorporate the sunset and the crops in my letter Y. I positioned it midway between the two, avoiding the white text on the page. 

When all your letters are cut out, glue them to the construction paper background. As I was doing that, I decided my I needed to be dotted with a heart, even though it's a capital letter. Artistic license. 

Now, go through the magazine and scan for words that appeal to you. They can be any part of speech: adjectives that describe you, nouns that are things you like, and verbs that tell your favorite things to do. Arrange the words onto the letters however you'd like. I grouped them together in a way that was meaningful for me, paying attention to the colors to maintain balance. In the D and the Y, I concentrated words in the areas where I didn't cut out the counters in order to reinforce that shape. 

I love how my project turned out. It would be so much fun to see a whole classroom's worth of names and a great way to get to know each other through art.

Zen Doodle Name Art

I'm calling this Zen Doodle Name Art. It was really fun to make. Affiliate links below.  

Zen Doodle Name Art

Materials:

• drawing paper
• ink pads
• blending brushes
• repositionable letter stickers
• black fineliner

Steps: 

Use the letter stickers to spell your name on a piece of paper. The ones I put in the supply list above are repositionable, so you'll be able to remove them later. If you use something else, like I did, stick them to your pant leg a few times to remove some of the adhesive before putting them on the paper. Otherwise you risk tearing the paper when you remove them. 

Use the blending brushes to cover all of the exposed paper with color. I used three colors, but you can obviously do whatever you want. 

Carefully remove the stickers. 

Now fill in each letter with a different pattern. 

That's all there is to it! I love projects like this for groups, because the finished designs will look completely different from one another. Enjoy!

Monotype Name Art

I recently spent a really fun afternoon crafting with my friend, Ann. This is what I made, spread on the floor to dry. 

Those are monotype prints. Monotype is a technique where you add paint (or ink) to a plate, remove some of the paint (via stencils, stamps, etc), and then transfer the remaining paint to paper. Every image is one-of-a-kind (hence the "mono" in the name). You can create similar prints, but they'll never be exactly the same, which is what makes them so special. You can layer multiple images onto the same paper to create even more interesting designs. We used Gelli Plates, a large brayer, and acrylic paint (affiliate links). 

Making monotype prints is really fun, but what can you do with your finished prints besides just admire them? It should come as no surprise that my first thought was to turn them into name art! I started by picking five of my prints and trimming away the excess paper.

Then I cut patterns for the letters in my name using scrap paper. (No pattern needed for the letter I!) I cut them freehand; as you can see, I folded the C and the Y to help with symmetry. I decided against cutting out the center of the D in order to preserve more of the print. 

If you aren't confident freehanding letters, even on scratch paper, try drawing them first. You could also print out the letters or use stencils. 

Before I cut out my letters, I shifted the patterns so that the most interesting parts of my prints would remain. Then I cut. I'm holding the I in this photo, but the letter N is a better example of this. I'm glad I didn't lose that purple stenciled detail. 

Here is my finished name art, mounted on black posterboard. I love how the letters pop against the black. 

Curious what I did with the rest of my monotype prints? I'll show you tomorrow. 

Twisteezwire Name Art

If you like tedious and frustrating crafts, boy do I have the project for you!

I thought that making a name art project using TwisteezWire (affiliate link) would be fun. I started by printing my name with the super cool Monoton font. I picked four colors of wire, then cut my letters apart. 

I grabbed my Ohuhus and found colors to match my wires. Then I colored in my letters. Not only would this make it easy to see what wire went where, but if I didn't place the wires exactly perfectly, it wouldn't be as obvious. 

Time to start cutting wire! I started with the Y, lining up each wire against the template and giving it a snip. So far, so good!

 

I used a toothpick to dab tacky glue onto the letter template and then carefully placed the wires onto the glue. It wasn't as easy as I'd hoped, but it wasn't terrible. But things went downhill soon after. Letters I and N weren't bad, but it was difficult to get the smooth curves needed for the C. The D was an absolute nightmare. Shaping the wires (and then checking and re-checking against the template) was tedious. Gluing them in place was frustrating and time-consuming. It was hard to get the right amount of glue to hold the wire without having extra that showed. I tried putting the glue on the wire itself vs on the paper, but it was equally challenging. 

The last step was gluing the letters to a piece of black cardstock. I only managed to pop off a single wire in the process, which was a small miracle, but I also managed to glue the N upside down. That would seriously bug me if the rest of the project had turned out well, but that obviously wasn't the case. 

This project was a bust... for me, anyway. Someone with more patience and better fine motor skills might like it more. For that matter, maybe TIM or ELLA or someone else with a short name with no curves would enjoy it more than I did. 

I want to clarify that TwisteezWire is a really fun craft material that you can use to make tons of neat stuff. Some of my favorite projects I've made with TwisteezWire include these critters, this puzzle piece person, and this bouquet of button flowers. I've even used TwisteezWire to make letters before (with curves) with no issues.  

Faux Glitter Name Art

Check out my glittery name art! I love it. So pretty, right?

 

I made this name art using plain, non-sparkly pens on ordinary printer paper. There is no glitter or anything shiny or shimmery at all. Read on to find out how to make your own- it's really easy! Affiliate links below. 

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Faux Glitter Name Art

Materials: 

• your name, printed or handwritten, in outlined letters (I used the Ossem Rounded font on PicMonkey)
• markers (I used Ohuhu's paper-friendly Pupe set)
• white Posca pen

Steps: 

Choose three markers for each letter of your name. They should be the same basic color, with one darker, one in the middle, and one lighter. Start with the darkest one. Draw dots along the outer edges of your first letter. (I worked from right to left, of course.) The dots should be concentrated along the edges, with an occasional dot in the middle of the letter. 

Use your medium color to make more dots, concentrating them just inside the darkest color. Again, allow a few dots to go in the middle and a few along the edges. 

Add dots with the lightest color, concentrating them in the middle of the letter. 

Finally, add white dots, concentrated at the very center of the letter. 

Then move on to the next letter. Obviously, you can use the same three markers or choose another set of three. I like the variety, so I did a modified rainbow. 

Here's a closer look at my completed yellow I and the start of my pink C. 

Here are all of the markers I used to color my name. They look so pretty together! And I love the way they perform on paper. If you haven't read my review of Ohuhu's Pupe paper-friendly markers, do that now. 

You can leave your artwork like this, but the letters don't POP until you put them on a black background. Color the background black or cut out the letters and glue them to black paper. 

Looking for more name art ideas? I have a few dozen for you to choose from. I love name art.