Fun Day plus a project in the making. (Long Post)

Well sadly I had hoped to get to my crafty room yesterday but a surprise visit from my son meant I needed to but aside the craftiness and visit with the grandkids. Time is precious as they say and I don't want to miss any of it with them if I don't have to.

So that left me to work  on something today and while its just a quick layout I also wanted to share with you a home craft project that I started on. First things first the layout. I had spritzed some pages before but messed them up so using them here allowed me to cover them up with the pp and cs papers then I didn't have to toss them in the garbage.

Now on to the fun stuff at least for me right now. I have eyed those lovely plank signs you might have seen at Home Goods or Target or even Hobby Lobby. They go for anywhere from $35 to $50 (for just a plain painted plank). The one I spied was at the upper half of the price. I did not want to pay for it, but I did want it. So a search Pintrest gave me some ideas and I am meshing them together.

Sent DH down to Home Depot and tasked him with building the base sign. I'd be an idiot if I didn't send my carpenter of a husband down to build this for me, but honestly my first thought was that's too easy and I could have done it myself. If you wanted to, don't think you can't because it's easy and I know you can. After telling him my size, he bought some cedar fence posts (3) from HD for about $2 ea.

Then cut the tops off since I wanted a flat top and the post come 6 ft. Then he took another small piece of wood and just put some wood glue on that and nailed the posts to the strip (one on the top and one on the bottom). Super easy right.

 

 I also asked him to pick up a small can of grey (any color) wood stain, which he did for an addition $6. And I took a brush and coated the wood planks and then while still wet took a rag and wiped them down so my stain isn't too solid. That took all of 5 minutes. 

This is now my base grey wood. I stained it because I was going to put some chalk paint on top of the wood for a distressed look and didn't want the gold cedar wood to show through. I was going for a weathered grey look. 

A little blase on its own but after the stain dried which was like 30 min I applied with a light hand some grey chalk paint I had left over. If you want to save some $ you can make your own. Otherwise you don't need much and could buy some from Joann's for about $8. Mine was leftover from some Adirondack chairs I painted.

When I first started and you will notice on the left side I was very heavy handed the next two I adapted for the light hand barely brushing over the top to pick up the wood grain. Then going back in some heavy narrow strokes.

I think it came out great and despite that the left is not quite right, it won't matter because I plan on running a strip of ribbon up the length of the board so it will hide that imperfection.

And here is what I also have collected from Hobby Lobby on sale. The ribbon was around $5, bells around $4 and tree picks for about $2. So far I've spent less than $25, I still need to make some stencils from my silhouette and paint the letters. You could buy some stencils with a 40% off coupon..which would run you another $5 or so. I am going to use 4 inch letters on mine. My computer died so it's charging up. So stay tuned for the finished project.