You Can DIY...

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I worked all day yesterday and then my husband and I went out for a friends birthday. We don't go out all that often these days, so after getting home at 1:30AM (yes folks...that's WAY past our bedtime...) we weren't all that ambitious today. Sundays are the ONE day that I get for having my wonderful husband help me with that "honey do" list. Since neither of us were overly motivated today, just getting my DIY painted sign hung up was a huge accomplishment.

It's only been sitting in the basement workshop for...eh...2 months.

Since starting my flea market hobby, I've been keeping my eyes peeled for an old painted, vintage sign. I've seen old signs promoting motor oil or tobacco, and while they can be neat, that's not quite what I was envisioning in our kitchen.

When all else fails: search Pinterest. Here are some of the images that helped inspire me.

I used this PIN as some guidance.

Then I totally winged it.

I normally feel that their are enough tutorials available on the web for people to find out how to do something. However, I started thinking that there are a LOT of people that wouldn't think themselves capable of doing some of these projects. So maybe I need to share that it's totally and completely possible.

First rule of thumb. DON'T put pressure on yourself to be perfect. 

I'm an extreme perfectionist, so this is challenging. But here's the thing: if you embrace the things that you are capable of, it will make for a very personal atmosphere in your home. And a house isn't a home until it reflects YOU.

So while I doubted that my sign was perfection, I stuck to my gut and in the end, I think it's pretty cool. I made that. Better yet? My husband said it looked like something you would see sold in a store. Thanks husband. You have no idea what that means to me.

So here is what I did to make my sign:

I searched through our out buildings until I found a board I thought would be perfect.

I used stencils and traced them in pencil on the board. This way I could figure out the layout and just paint over the pencil if I didn't like it. 

I made my go-to chalk paint for the base color. You can choose any color. I went with a cream color (leftover from a bathroom paint color). I painted around my penciled in letters and went as close to the lines as possible. I didn't want to cover them up too much or I wouldn't know where to put my stencils once I was ready to paint the letters on.

Then I mixed up a second chalk paint in a blue color to do my main letters. I put the stencils back in place and pretty much just colored in the lines with my blue chalk paint. I repeated with black craft paint for the smaller letters (I just used what I had. You can do whatever you want. That's the beauty of this! It's your project!)

Once everything was painted on, I used the tip from my Pinterest PIN that I posted above. I used a darker paint color that I mixed up using some left over paint to get a " shadow" color. I went through and added some dimension to my letters by outlining them with the "shadow". Next I used a lighter paint color to "highlight" a few of the inside lines of my letters. Now I'm not artist, so I really didn't know the right or wrong way of doing this. I just went with trial and error. If I didn't like it, I just wiped it off and touched up with the blue paint. (Hint: if you mix up your own chalk paint, cover it with plastic wrap. It seals it up enough that it won't dry out. I never had to mix more paint!)

Once dry, I tried doing a tinted wax (a DIY wax) over the top. It didn't do the exact effect that I had hoped but I'm thinking it was because the tint wasn't dark enough. But I was afraid to of making the sign too "dingy" so I left it alone and rolled with it.

The next day (I wanted to give the wax time to settle) I tried distressing with a very fine sand paper. Once again...I failed. All it did was smudge my letters. I had read that distressing after waxing would limit the distressing (as I didn't want to erase all my words). I would chalk that tip up to meaning for furniture. (No pun intended! Haha!)  I wouldn't recommend on rough wood with different color paints on it. But after distressing I just wiped the board off with a rag and took my original base color and touched up around the smudged letters. Ta da! It worked. It had a crisper look again but the words still appeared faded and worn. And that's what I was going for.

I cut the board to a shorter length after I painted so that I could have enough room to do what I wanted. I had wanted to do a jagged cut but after all my hard work, I was a tad bit worried that the wood would split. My husband helped me do a clean cut and then I just painted the end. I was also a little worried that once I put the sign up, it would look too big for the space. But thank the Lord it fits perfectly!

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the finished product.

Sorry for the iPhone image!

Want one last tip? Walk away from your project for 2 months if you're doubting yourself. After not staring at it and criticizing it and seeing it with "new eyes" after some time away, I found that I loved it. If you have been debating about trying something new but you doubt your talents: DO IT! You just never know what you're capable of!