Hi Folks:
Well, this being our 7th year of hugging Victorians (and anyone else who’s interested), we decided to update our FREE HUGS posters. The old ones have served us well, but they’re definitely showing their age. At the risk of overstating the obvious, all you need to make a poster is a pen or a marker and something flat enough to write on… but as the saying goes, “The Walk is Part of the Gift“. To that end, we wanted to put some effort into our new posters.
We began by making a template in CorelDraw. Because of the size of the posters (22″x28″) the letters were too big to fit on one page, so we printed out 8 letter-sized pages with various parts of letters and taped the pages together. We used an Arial Black font this time around. If you want to print your own, you can use the .pdf file here: FREE HUGS Template. Each page has a box around it, so just line up the edges of the boxes and tape them together. It should look something like this:
Free Hugs Template
Don’t worry about the gaps; those are just paper overlays. In lieu of a light table we taped the template to the window, taped a blank piece of posterboard over top and traced the outline:
Free Hugs Template
That got us to this point:
Free Hugs Poster, Stage 1
and then we filled in the letters using black markers – fine point for the edges and a broader marker for the infill. Marcia’s hands are steadier, so she did the inking.
It probably would have been simpler at this point to go to the local paper store and buy some stickers, but if you already have the self-healing cutting mat and the swivel-knives, you may as well print out some clip art:
Clip Art
We glued those on using a spray adhesive, and voilà ! Marcia went the extra step of adding some flowers to her poster:
Mike’s FREE HUGS Poster
Marcia’s FREE HUGS Poster
As mentioned at the top, we’ve used our old posters for 7 years, but they’ve been patched more than once. The final step for these new ones was to take them to a local print shop and have them laminated:
Final Posters
Having them laminated stiffens the board, prevents them from tearing and has the added advantage of being impervious to a little rain.
That’s it! We’re proud of the outcome of our work. Remember to hug someone you love today. Or a stranger. Or, preferably, both!
Hugs,
M&M