| Rainy days don't have to be gloomy days. Jazz up the | | | | they can be selotaped together. |
| winter months with ahome-made personalised brolly. | | | | Cut out the words leaving a good couple of cm's all |
| Express yourself and shake off those rainy days | | | | around the text. Selotape the words back together as |
| blues. Add pictures, phrases, names or symbols to | | | | necessary. Balance the 'up' umbrella on the backs of |
| your umbrella. You don't need any artistic skills, just a | | | | two dining table chairs back to back but parted. Sit a |
| steady hand. | | | | lamp on the floor beneath the umbrella so that it shines |
| All you need is a computer with a printer, an umbrella, | | | | up through the brolly like a backlight. This is so that you |
| fabric paints, a lamp and some selotape. | | | | can see the text through the fabric of the umbrella. |
| Choose a plain umbrella to work with. Patterned | | | | Using the selotape, stick the slogan to the underside of |
| umbrellas distract from the design and drown it any | | | | the umbrella ink side up. |
| colour brolly will do, even dark colours such as navy or | | | | Using fabric paint trace around the text, filling in the |
| black. | | | | appropriate parts in paint. Because the text is traced it |
| The umbrella should be made from a nylon plastic and | | | | is neat, all the same size and constant and looks |
| not PVC. The fabric paints used to decorate on the | | | | professional. |
| umbrella are not as effective on PVC umbrellas. | | | | The same principle can be applied to images. Find a |
| Adding a slogan onto the umbrella. | | | | simple bold picture in a |
| To do this, write a slogan onto a word document on a | | | | Google image search, or Hello Kitty is a great example. |
| computer. Make the font as large as possible and | | | | Print out the image and then trim off the excess paper. |
| chose a font for your slogan. I chose the slogan | | | | Selotape to the under side of an umbrella panel, ink |
| "It's raining again..." Which I thought was appropriate and | | | | side up. Shine the lamp up through the paper and the |
| would be great for any Madness fan, and I chose font | | | | brolly and trace the picture with fabric paints. |
| "Goudy Stout" A bold chunky font. | | | | You could have a whole array of characters in a |
| Print out the slogan when you are happy with it. Due to | | | | freeze around your brolly, the sky's the limit. Rainy |
| the size of the text the words may get broken up | | | | days will forever be funky vibrant days! |
| onto different lines, don't worry about this because | | | | |