It's not bad spelling, it's a love for Gary Larson

For the last couple months, I've been on a major cleaning kick.  Each and every closet, nook, and cranny have been cleaned out, sorted into keep/sell piles, and reorganized.  During this process, several items turned up that I initially planned on discarding but instead decided to give them a new purpose.

For example, how many of these Christmas popcorn tins have you been given, devoured, and thrown away?  At least one a year since you've been alive?  Yea, pretty much.  Found this empty one in the bowels of our garage and realized with a little tweaking, it would make an ideal container for cat food.

Now, as much as I love Christmas, the current mother and baby deer chilling in the snow (ha, see what I did there) print isn't really jiving with the overall look of our kitchen so it needed to be spray painted.  First things first, the whole tin was cleaned up, dried, and the stickers on the lid were removed.  A few coats of white spray paint later and we have this.

We're not done yet faithful readers!  Using some form of wizardry (Photoshop) and his ridiculous collection of fonts, the husband whipped up two stencils for this adventure.

Kitties!

On to the stencil making!  My current method for creating stencils is using sign vinyl.  The hubs picked up a roll for his own project of dying disc golf discs (shameless promotion for MTP Designs) and I've used it for loads of other stenciling projects.

For this approach, a light box is required however you can also MacGyver something together like I did and use a desk lamp with an end table that has a glass top.  Recently, I saw another DIY version where a bare bulb is placed in a large, clear, plastic container which seemed crazy easy/cheap to throw together.

Anyways, to get started, tape the picture to the bottom of the sign vinyl to keep it held in place while it's being cut.  When everything is sitting on the light box, the picture will be clearly visible as pictured below.  Next, cut out the stencil using enough pressure to cut the vinyl  but not so much that the paper backing is cut.  It's easier than it sounds, I promise.



Once the cutting is done, remove the pieces to end up with something like below.  Now, here is my favorite reason for using this vinyl.  No stencil islands.  See how the eyes on Yigs and the facial details on Hobbes are not connected to an outside edge?  Stencil sections like this are called islands and are normally a no-no beacuse it is a pain/near impossible to transfer them onto whatever is being stencilled. 

Not so with sign vinyl.  Apply masking tape to the top of the stencil so when the backing is peeled away, the masking tap holds the islands in place for easy transferring.

Along with the kitties and Cat Fud stencil, I also added a few strips of vinyl for added detail.  It's a bit hard to see in the picture but there are two small strips at the top and a larger one at the bottom.

After the stencils have been applied, spray paint the tin again with the second color of paint. 

Next comes the moment of truth when the stencils are removed to reveal how awesome or possibly how terrible everything turned out.

Success!!

Never ending staring contest.

Here is how the cat feeding corner looked before....

And how it looks now.

Kitten added for extra authenticity.

For safety reasons, whether real or created in my crazy head, I also sprayed the tin with a few coats of clear sealant and let it sit in the sun for a couple days so everything could fully cure and air out.  Once all that nonesense was out of the way, I dumped in the cat food, threw in an old measuring cup to use as a scoop, and we were ready to get this kitten feeding party started.

And the comic that started it all.  Gary Larson, thanks for being so awesome.