Lennon's "Imagine" Art

The Girl, if you haven't guessed by now, is a bleeding heart with a strong desire for peace and harmony for all. Naturally, she's a John Lennon fan and his "Imagine" is her anthem. She asked for something Lennon inspired for her room and I'd seen a lot of window frame art (is that a thing?) on Pintrest and took inspiration from that. It was a super simple project and could be adapted to any theme.

What you'll need:

• A picture frame
• Permanent markers
• A traceable image of your choice
• A printer (I guess this is optional...I'm working on the assumption that you're finding your traceable image online)
• A sheet of tissue paper

I used a 10x13 frame I had on hand (bought at Walmart for $5). I had painted the frame white awhile back, so all it took to prep it was cleaning the glass. After that, I did a quick Google image search of the lyrics. Once I found an image we liked, I printed it out in black and white, messing around with the size a bit. It was a matter of trial and error, and I can't be more specific than that because the original image size will make a difference. I think I searched "imagine all the people" because "Imagine" alone got me a lot of pictures of John Lennon. But you could search, oh, I dunno...the words to Rings of Power or a few lines from your favorite video game or the lyrics to Aqua's "Barbie Girl". Whatever's fun for you.

After I had it sized to my liking, I taped it to the back of the glass like so:

Sorry about the flash. I turned it off for the other pictures...not sure what I was doing here!

Then came the fun part...COLORING! Because, be honest, it's still fun. So get out your permanent markers. I traced the outline of each word first and as I went, I replaced the printer paper with tissue paper. The marker is somewhat transparent and against the black ink of the printed image, was a little difficult to see. Same went for when there was nothing behind it. So tissue paper saved the day. Once I'd traced the outlines, I went back over and colored them in. Yay!

Tissue paper to make it easier to see my words

I don't know how permanent permanent marker really is in this use, so I won't be cleaning it with glass cleaner. Obviously, you'll want to hang it when you're finished :) The tissue paper won't be needed once it's up on the wall, so you can remove that! Oh, pro tip: I wouldn't recommend this method with a large image. You can see in the larger letters here the marker lines. While I think an elephant in a nursery would be adorable, I don't think a large area would color well. The ink sits on the glass and will smear away if you're not careful or leave those lines. So yeah, there's that. Smaller areas of color :)

Oh, and if you use this method for the lyrics to "Barbie Girl," PLEASE share it with me *wink*