Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Hand Painted Wooden Sign

hand painted sign, western decor

Flavor of the month: Western Decor. I love it. I want a little. Maybe a lot. 

But for now, I'm going to start with just a little of the Old West in my home, and see how it goes. 

There are plenty of catalogues I love, selling very expensive (but beautiful, cozy and charming) Western themed decor. However, I thought, starting off slow, it's easiest to DIY a little bit of Western Decor, and see if I like it in my home. 

The first thing on my list was to make a hand painted sign, and I found inspiration for this idea HERE 

hand painted sign, western decor

I love the words on this sign, but I wanted to lettering bigger and a little brighter. I searched around Pinterest for a free font that struck my fancy, and found one called "Nashville", which I then downloaded to Word. 

Next, I pulled on my trust cowboy boots, and headed to our basement (yee haw!), where I searched for the perfect piece of wood, that would be the right length to hang above the coat closet. 

A length of scrap plywood fit the bill. It had a few dings and dents, but that's what I was looking for. 

I painted the plywood black and waited until it was good and dry.

As I waited, I typed in the words BOOTS, CHAPS AND COWBOY HATS in the font "Nashville" and printed them off. I used the font size 200 to make the letters extra, extra large. I then cut out the letters and traced them onto the wood with pencil. (All of this because I stink at eyeballing letters).

hand painted sign, western decor

I then filled the letters with white paint. (I didn't have the right sized paint brush so I used on old make-up brush!) 

hand painted sign, western decor

Once the paint was dry, I sanded the whole piece down with some sand paper, and  then a little steel wool, to try and age it a little bit. 

hand painted sign, western decor

I used my favorite method to hang the sign ~ pop tops and hot glue. (See HERE for a little more detail) 

hand painted sign, western decor

And there you have it! Perfect for hanging above the coat closet! So far, I like a little Western! 

hand painted sign, western decor

Do you have any Western decor DIY's? Or are you a full-blown cowgirl or cowboy? 

I'd love hearing from you! I'd also love for you to follow along on FB, Pinterest, OR 

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If you would like to join in some fun link parties, head on over HERE

12 comments:

Susan at TheBoredZombie.com said...

heh, neato! You're so creative. You must have a HUGE house or are constantly switching out decor. :)

Unknown said...

LOL! We built our house so lots of bare walls! Julia

Kim Seghers said...

Love you sign it came out really cute . Great idea using the pop top. Have a great day, Kim ~ This Ole Mom

Unknown said...

Thank you Kim!! I'm glad you stopped by! Julia

Unknown said...

I love how you created this from things you already had, including the makeup brush and pop caps--I'm the same way! I'll have to try this method the next time I make a sign. :)

Unknown said...

Dee - ((hugs)) When you're bored and need something to do, you just grab what you have! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Julia

Michelle said...

What a cool idea! It came out really nice! And I loved your clever idea with the pop tops! That is the second time this week I have seen a great use for them, the other for for your hangers! Visiting from LOBS!

Unknown said...

Thanks Michelle! I do love using pop tops - for hanging odd things also - like plates... :) Julia

ketty said...

Awesome ! i really found very informative article here and bookmarked this blog. Thank you

Erlene said...

Julia the sign came out great and I love using the soda can tops for hangers too!

Kendra | www.joyinourhome.com said...

Love the sign!! And what a creative hanger ;) Would love for you to share it at our link party on my blog :)
Kendra @ www.joyinourhome.com

Unknown said...

Erlene - thank you!

Kendra, thank you for the invite! And thanks for stopping by!

Julia