Antique Sign

I typed this post several days ago…however it never got posted.  I have been caught up in other projects so I haven’t gotten around to posting this one.  But here she is and I hope you enjoy!

 

There was a bare naked space above our “mud room” and it’s a difficult space to fill because it is narrow but high. I was thinking a picture of our family’s feet but then I came across one of my favorite blogger/designers recent posts about her making a shipping crate. It inspired me to make a sign for my empty space. The only thing about Jenna Sue’s crate is I wasn’t sure I could pull off the wax paper trick.

Then I remembered she made a “tea time” sign for her kitchen and I began searching her site for that tutorial. I kind of combined both of her projects into one and came up with my antique sign.

After going back and looking at this post right before posting it, I realized…I failed BIG time on pictures.  I was so worried and caught up in making the sign I didn’t take many pictures.  I apologize.

First I took the piece of wood that was the right size for my space and I stained it. I am not sure what time of wood this was but it was pretty saturated with the stain and took about an hour to dry. I only put one coat of stain on it because I wanted it to be lighter.

After it was dry, I began distressing the wood. I used a hammer, both ends, and began hitting the wood all over. I also banged along the edges and the corners to make them round.  I did this the same way I made my chalkboard chunk-o-wood and my heart is in Florida board.

Then I mixed water and acrylic white and light blue paint. I made sure the paint was pretty watered down so it was like slapping water on the board. My theory behind that was I could better control the darkness that way. If the first coat wasn’t enough then I could reapply the “white wash”. I put about two coats of “white wash” on the board and then let it dry. Because I used so much water it dried almost instantly.

Then I took my sign that I followed Jenna’s tutorial here to make, and applied it to the board. I am not going to recreate the wheel on that one because I literally following her tutorial to a tee when creating my sign. What I found is not to use too much water and to rub lightly. If you use too much watch it will start to bleed and if you rub too hard you will rip the paper.

Mine bled a little but after it was dry I sanded around the entire board and after that I really liked the way it looked so I was ok with the bleeding. I plan on making another sign, or two, and I will make sure to not let the paper get so saturated.

The other thing I learned is the picture hanger kit with the wire, like pictured above, does not work because the board pulls too far away from the wall.  We may have not pulled the wire tight enough either.  We ended up using a picture hanger kit like this:

…and it worked much better.

I think the sign adds just enough to that empty space and I like how it is rustic but brings color to the room…perfect project! Thanks Jenna Sue.

If you haven’t heard of Jenna Sue, I highly recommend her blog.  I follow many DIY and craft blogs and will come across a project here and there that I like but with Jenna Sue I literally want to do every single project.  We have similar tastes and she makes them so easy to recreate, so go check her out!