Local Landmark Cutouts {Iron Craft Challenge}

The Iron Craft challenge for this week was to make something incorporating local history or otherwise inspired by the place we live (or somewhere we used to live, but Fayetteville is the only place I remember living, other than for summer internships).

If you’re from Arkansas or know anything about Arkansas or SEC sports, you know that the University of Arkansas is in Fayetteville. And the university really has two symbols: the Razorback and Old Main.

Old Main was the first permanent building on campus, with the exterior being finished in 1875, three years after the school opened as the Arkansas Industrial University.

It’s the only building built in the 19th century on campus that still stands, but it took a big effort in the 1980s to keep it.

It dominates the landscape as it pops in and out of view around the town’s hills, and it’s a source of pride to students and alums, the sentimental home base of our time on campus (the front lawn of which holds another of our treasured traditions, parts of Senior Walk).

I decided to honor Old Main, and the university itself, because today happens to be the university’s 145th birthday, by making a cutout of the building that could be used as the front of a card or as a wall hanging. It would be perfect as part of a collage of college memorabilia, too.

You can make local landmark cutouts using any building that’s distinct enough to be recognized by its shape. Historical buildings are great choices, but you could also do this with your house.

How to Make Local Landmark Cutouts

First, find or take a picture of the landmark. You want to be able to see the outline as clearly as possible. I actually used an old drawing I found on the university’s website.

Print it out and cut out the shape. I cut out the tree and the flagpole from my rendering so that I was left with just the shape of the building.

Using an X-ACTO knife, cut around the outside of the shape on a piece of cardstock.

Go back over any places where your lines don’t connect or didn’t cut all the way through.

It would be traditional to back my Old Main cutout with Razorback red (cardinal, really).

But I also love it with a map of Fayetteville in the background.

Is there a local landmark you could immortalize in a cutout? I’d love to know about it! Also, check out Iron Craft and other fun crafty goodness at Just Crafty Enough.