This year we opened our newly renovated Junior School Library. As part of our redesign, we wanted to make the circulation desk space more welcoming and inviting. This included removing the timetable whiteboard from the wall behind the desk (helpful for staff yes, but not overly appealing) and replacing this with a large wall decal. Since I love getting a bit crafty and we have access to Cricut machines and lots of vinyl, we decided to create an image that would reflect the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book Week theme for 2025, Book An Adventure. This would be our theme for the year and the decal would stay up all year, only to be replaced next year with the new theme.
Creating the design
I create most of my graphics and images in Canva. Having a Canva for Education account means I get access to all sorts of images, perfect for creating this sort of a design.
I started with the theme. I didn’t want to replicate the official design in anyway, but wanted to take from the theme and apply it to our setting.
I wanted it to be simple, easy to cut and apply to the wall, and be eye catching. Sticking with just one colour scheme would keep the design streamlined. I’d created decals for windows before but never attached any to walls, so I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to apply.
I started with a custom size project, choosing a square to work in with maximum size in pixels to give me a crisp download (2000px x 2000px).
I created three different designs around the theme Book An Adventure. I also wanted it to reflect our library and its new design. One design had a tree, another mountains and the third signposts. I showed the basic designs to the team who made their choice – the mountain- and then set about refining my design.
When I’m working in Canva for these sorts of designs, I’m looking for clear, simple graphics that display well in one colour. As I cut these from vinyl, I need to avoid designs that use multiple colours within an element to make what it is clear. The mountains were perfect. I particularly love that this design uses the same book graphic that is included in our library logo. This gives the design a bit of branding relevance and longevity. We want it to be up for the whole year, so making it relevant to our school library as well as Book Week makes it suitable for its placement and time in such a prominent position in the library.
Then I added text. The font is really important. It has to carry the message and tone of the design. The font can dramatically impact the feel of the design, especially since the design is so simple. I wanted something easy to read, something that would stand out on the wall and carry that sense of fun and adventure the theme. This is for a junior library and needed to reflect that. A second font for the secondary heading provides balance.
Finally, the design needed to be sized and laid out correctly. The size of the mountains needed to balance the text, and the overall design needed to look good in its space on the wall.
Download
Downloading the graphic is easy thanks to Canva’s multiple download options. I downloaded the design as an SVG. This allows you to work with individual objects in the design, which is what we need when working with such a large graphic.
From there, it was time to move to Cricut design space. I uploaded the design as an SVG. I removed the background layers.
I knew I wanted the design to be 1m wide and tall, so I sized the whole graphic together to retain the integrity of the layout and proportions. Of course, this means some graphics are too big to cut on the 30cm x 60cm mats I have.
I grouped the text by words, but split Adventure into two groups, so I would be able to cut the letters large enough. By grouping words or sections of words, when the design cuts you don’t have to place individual letters, which makes aligning the image on the wall a lot easier. I grouped the whole last line, as it was small enough to cut in one go.
The mountain was of course too big to cut, so I sliced the design into three sections. Slicing is an awesome tool that allows you to cut a graphic into smaller sections. I added a rectangle, sized it to just smaller than 30cm x 60cm, placed it over the mountain and used the slice tool. Removing the rectangle shape and extra pieces, I now have a mountain in three sections small enough to be cut.
I chose to use Metamark 4 vinyl for this project in white and black (purchased through Vinyl Loft). This is removable vinyl, as I want to take it down off the wall at the end of the year and replace it. It’s also more forgiving when applying it. I also needed transfer contact.
I cut the designs following the usual Cricut cutting procedure, loading the mat and selecting the adhesive vinyl material option. Once all the pieces were cut, I laid out the weeded design on a table. I used spare backing paper to fill the gaps of the transfer paper, just in case it would be too sticky. It really wasn’t necessary, as it hardly wanted to stick to our wall, but if you have older flakey paint, it might be helpful for you while you recentre the design.
We measured and marked a few centre lines on the wall, ensuring we had the height we wanted. Then, piece by piece, we stuck the design to the wall. Having two people to hold, align and then stick down the design made it a lot easier. You can’t even see the three joins in the mountain.
The wall was freshly painted in wash and wear paint, so the vinyl was reluctant to stick to the wall, making it a little tricky to get the pieces to remove from the transfer tape – the opposite problem from what I was expecting. Using the weeding tool helped and slowly the design came together. When each piece was added, I rubbed it throughly with my fingers to attach it to the wall more securely.
Overall, this was such an easy and cheap project, costing just $16 in vinyl. It’s a process I will repeat each year to update the design. It looks fantastic on our green feature wall behind the desk and is a fun way of reflecting the Book Week theme and our library as visitors enter the space.
