Advice needed on tactile lettering for a blind kid.

Hi all

I'm putting this here with the hope that someone might have an idea how i can solve this problem.......

I made a little girl a gift, a woden fairy door to be more exact, something to stick on the skirting board/baseboard and they wait for the fairies to come in ......anyway, these doors are usualy well received more as a visual thing. They look nice....this is another one i did for a friends daughter...just so you a picture of what i mean...



However the little girl i'm making it for has been slowly going blind since the age of four, and now she is prety much completely blind.

Her dad says she always loved purple.....so purple it is then.....she remembers what purple looks like.....but i'm stuck as far as writing the lettering on the little plaque. Usualy it's just a case oif a basic acrylic paint job with varnish over the top, however the little girl is blind.

As her dad says, the visual side of this door will be pretty much lost on her. I would like to be able to make the lettering raised, so she can feel the letters. Her dad says she can still remember shapes of the alphabet from before her blindness happened.

She cannot read Braille yet.

So i'm wondering how i can do letters that are raised, but preferable italic looking (can do with basic font if i really have to), and that are quite small. These letters are only 5mm high.

Things i've thought of or tried and they aren't suitable.....

Writing it in acrylic paint......too flat, she won't be able to feel it.

3D acrylic paint pen........to messy.....it's not accurate enough to be able to control it for nice neat letters.

Lettraset stick on leters......not small enough.....and again....not raised enough to feel

Thats about all i could think of.....i can't carve that neat.....that said i'm not sure whether i could go to an engravers rather have it engraved rather than having it raised? Can blind people feel engraved letters as well as they do raised?

I'm just putting the problem out there to see if any of you good people had any ideas?

Thanks in advance for the taking the time to read this and maybe think about it.

Regards,

CX.

Hot glue gun. Take your time, write the letters as you normally would, just use the hot glue. When it dries, the letters will be raised.

ETA -
Oops, Just read "5 mm high". I think you'd be better off carving them in. Use a hobby knife. I do quite a bit of carving and wish I could do it for you, as it seems like something well worth doing. Get one with a sharp tip, draw the letters and then cut at a "V" angle, so the cut will meet at the bottom of the v. The excess will pop right out. This is called "chip carving". Look it up on Google to get some tips. I have many books on it and wish I could lend you some to learn with.

I would also recommend using the hot glue gun to write brail on the top crescent part of this door. Because when she can and will learn to read brail, you will have a beautiful message waiting for her, kinda like a time capsule gained with knowledge, so the quicker she learns the quicker she will know the message. It could be that little push to learn the language . (explain it to her father, so he won't tell her daughter the message, but knows it will be beautiful, hopefully it can bring tears of happiness and love to his eyes as well)

Make its brail of inspiration and motivation to never let anything get you(her) down, keep moving forward for yourself, etc. (i'm sure you will know what to say).

This is a wonderful thing you are doing.

Respects,

a reply to: CX

I had the idea that model railway guys might have something useful and they do. Not sure what budget you're looking at?

Raised letters and numbers and these ones are $7.75:

a reply to: Kandinsky

Didn't even think of these.
Nailed it.

a reply to: DAVID64

Cheers. No such luck with miniature Braille kits. They're all big-ass clumsy things going from 1" and upwards.



ETA - you wouldn't believe how bad I am with glue guns! It's like my hands are 'two left feet.'

Thank you everyone for the replies so far, i will try them all, even if they don't work, won't do any harm giving it ago and maybe even adapting one of them. Good point about the braille too, i guess she'd be learning it soon anyway.

Nice to see so many crafty people here

CX.

a reply to: CX

Your fairy door looks great , any fairy would be proud of such an entrance.

It thumps me in the heart to hear stories of sick children but a child going blind at such a young age also fills me with sadness. Your efforts are to be commended and applauded so I felt the need to post even though I have no suggestion to help but I think Kandinsky has hit that particular nail on the head.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Kadinsky you are a star! Just phoned the local shop and they do this kind of thing....i guess it's like what you had in your pic there.....

slatersplastikard.com...

They do them quite small too, definitely worth a try

CX.

a reply to: gortex

Thank you, and yes i agree, big thump to the heart.

Here's the little girls story....

www.macximum.com...

CX.

a reply to: CX

Ah man, I didn't notice you're UK! It's a very cool thing you're doing there

Really glad the letters are good for you

a reply to: DAVID64

im with david.
carve the letters out.
she will be able to tell which letter she is feeling. she will just trace the negative recess with her finger tips.
i would imagine that in no time at all she will be able to tell what all sorts of things are by feel.
losing a sense heightens others. after all, she will be using touch more than others.

a reply to: CX

My family has 2 members who were born blind. Their mother used to used hot glue to trace pictures for them to color in. But it should work nicely for raised letters, and you can paint over it for the aesthetic value for sighted people.

a reply to: CX

You can always go with the tried-and-proven "puff paint," that way you can keep your own handwritten style. I would suggest going over it with a clear-coat or a polyurethane, though, to keep it from flaking off as easily.

I think the raised lettering that people have linked to would be better, though. I say go find yourself a craft store and you'll probably be overwhelmed with options.

Those are neat doors...you should randomly fix them to tree stumps so that people wake up to them and wonder what's going on