Engineering Prints: Inspirational Posters For Kids Party Decorations

There are lots of posts on the internet about using engineering prints to make large posters. These are usually used to make a one off poster to be framed in a house. But they also make a perfect cheap and cheerful, but high impact decoration for a party. Used them to decorate parties and gatherings in large spaces.

Materials needed:

Photos of high enough resolution to be blown up to A0 size
Selection of motivational quotes
Photo editing software
Embossing foil (optional)
Chalk marker (optional)

Method

As this was decoration for a graduation party, I wanted the photos to represent all of the kids graduating. I selected the best 6 photos that I had, constrained by making sure all children are on at least one of the picture. The photos came from the school camera and were unfortunately not the best quality images. They were a touch blurry at full blown up effect, but in black and white good enough.

Select photos, and use photo editing software to crop to the correct ratio for printing (without reducing resolution). Annotate with quotes, selecting fonts that suit the picture and their negative spaces. Printing out large photos, or posters would be astronomical. However many local print shops will print on thin paper as Engineering prints for a few pounds per copy. Staples has branches all over, and are very accommodating.

I only realised after I had printed out the engineering prints, that although I had made them all black and white, the “levels” of adjustment varied across the engineering prints. Some are very dark others are more like sepia. For a more cohesive look, apply the same filter over all photos.

Embelishing (Optional)

To add some colour to the black and white, and to make the words stand out I embossed with foil. It looked fantastic, but having done a couple I realised it would take me ages, and not be noticed particularly in the big marquee space…..(and I was using up all of Abbis foil sheets). I used chalk markers to do the rest.

They gave enough change of tone that the words could be seen on a light and dark background. The chalk markers definitely weren’t as nice, and in hind sight, this step of embellishing is probably unnecessary – it would be far better to edit the photos with a transparent layer if necessary under the text (as I often do on my header post photos) to make the text stand out.

The Party

The posters were then hung up in the marquee at the the party. They were a great cheap way of filling up the space, and a great talking point for both kids and parents. The kids in particular loved finding themselves in the pictures. Add few balloons and some bunting, and you are ready to party. Unfortunately the pictures I took inside the marquee are shockingly bad, as It was such a rush to get everything up before the kids arrived. The bunting was hand made also for the party, and very effective. If you want to see how, check out here. Engineering Prints: Inspirational Posters For Kids Party Decorations

And after the party. Some of the kids graduating are leaving London at the end of the summer, so they took the posters as souvenirs to decorate their new bedrooms.

Quotes Used

The quotes I used came from this fab website brainyquote.com. The site allows you to search quotes by key words, themes and people. I wanted people or subjects that I thought would be meaningful to our group of 11 year olds, that had a motivational leaning, and were from, or by people they would relate to. The ones I chose were:

“If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals” Sirius Black (JK Rowling)

” It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be” Dumbledore (JK Rowling)

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible” Dalai Lama

“Leave people and places better than you found them” John Ridgeway
(John Ridgeway was the first man to row across the atlantic and founder of the Ridgeway Centre where the children do an adventure course as part of their year 6 school journey)

“I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that came out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot” Bill Gates &

“We’re just enthusiastic about what we do” Steve Jobs
“Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world” Nelson Mandela

These posters would look awesome as wedding decorations with b&w photos of the bride and groom as babies, and at various other ages until they met.

Other uses of Engineering Prints

A couple of other ways to use these plan (or engineering) prints are shown here.

For this last one, I pinned it a year or so ago from pinterest. When I tried to find the source blog to credit it here, and a tutorial to link to, I couldnt find one. It would appear the image is from an advert for the furniture (but dont quote me on that), and is most likely not an engineering print. It’s probably a hugely expensive piece of art!

Anyway I have included it, as I thought it was a fab idea, much pinned elsewhere. Taking a high resolution photo of a pice of sheet music would allow you to use the instructions above and recreate this. In the mean time, if anyone wants to correct me on the source, or add links to any other engineering print ideas please do.