Large decorative vinyls can radically change the appearance of a wall, interior doors and cabinets, to give a few examples. When purchasing this type of vinyl, the price will depend on its dimensions, and the size may not fit the space we want to decorate. For all this in this post I want to explain how to make large wall stickers yourselftailored and low cost.
In my previous post, I gave several examples of furniture to which decorative vinyl had provided a unique, elegant or fun touch. In the same way, large wall decals can give a totally new look to the walls of a room or to the doors of a cupboard, and if the vinyl is made to measure we will make sure that it will fit perfectly.
I’m currently giving our guest/utility room a facelift and I wanted to decorate the cupboard doors: I painted them a couple of years ago and they’ve improved a lot (you can see the step by step at this link), but now I wanted to provide a little more sparkle.
My intention was for the vinyl to occupy a large part of the size of the doors (185 cm high by 45 cm wide each), so I looked for a design to adapt it to those measurements. The theme had been clear for a few months: the image of the front of the mythical Volkswagen T1 Camper Vanfinding a silhouette to serve as a template was not too difficult.
The first thing I did was adapt the measurements to my space, for this I used Photoshop but it can be done with any free image editing program (for example XnView or Gimp). First of all, we will have to cut the image to reduce it only to the silhouette and change the size to adjust it in centimeters to the measure that we are going to need. It does not matter that the image is pixelated because it is a template that we will later trace on the vinyl.
In order to print our template on A4 or A3 size paper we must divide it, there are several options:
– Use the image editing program to create the divisions.
– Choose the “split across multiple sheets” option from the printer document options.
– Use a free online poster printing service like Block Posters or The Rasterbator.
I recommend printing a couple of copies of the template since one of them will serve as a guide once assembled and the different pieces that will make up the decorative vinyl will be cut from the other. In the following image you can see how the template looked once assembled:
In my specific case, the decorative vinyl will be symmetrical on each side of the door, so I have only printed one of the halves.
The next step will be place the template with adhesive tape on the area that we are going to decoratein case any adjustments need to be made.
For example, I had to add by hand a small part that was missing to finish the roof of the van.
Once all the necessary tweaks have been made, the template will be traced on the vinyl to later cut each of the parts of the decorative vinyl. In this link you have the step by step on how to do it.
Large size DIY wall decals can not only be made to measure, but also you can customize your color to be mono or multichromatic. In my case, what I did was trace the upper silhouette of the van, the logo, the headlights and the fender on silver gray vinyl, the windows on pearl gray vinyl, the lower part on turquoise vinyl and the wheels on black vinyl In this link you can find all the vinyl used to make the mural.
I have removed the handles and installed a pressure opening device, in this way the doors have a more refined appearance.
Seeing the before and after, who would say that it is the same wardrobe! Only by painting the doors the change had already been quite significant but after the placement of the decorative vinyl it is practically unrecognizable from the original.
Do you like large decorative vinyl? Now you know the steps you have to take if you want to make one to measure and totally personalized to your tastes and the decoration of your home, you will see that it is much easier than it seems at first glance and above all cheaper than those that already come ready to install do you dare?
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