We Interrupt Day Camp...

...to bring you my latest project. Our lives have been so busy of late that I haven't had a chance to tackle anything on my "to-do" list. August is usually the time of year that I do my autumn and Halloween crafts so I am free to design and sew costumes as the months move along. But, this year I really haven't even had time to look for ideas let alone execute them.

BUT, there was one thing that stood out in my mind. I had started making large signs for my mantle for each holiday and I had seen one for autumn that I wanted to try. I also thought that I could pull it off without even heading out on a shopping expedition-always a good thing because just running around to find supplies can eat up a whole day.

So, yesterday I headed to the garage. I found 3 different pieces of wood and with my trusty chop saw at hand, I got them all cut down and cleated together. Then, it got a coat of walnut stain-always have cans of stain around here, so no cost yet.

Because I wanted the sign to have an old, chippy, chalky paint kind of feel, I used white ceiling paint that I let dry out a bit. One coat of white, followed by a coat of sage green craft paint, followed by another coat of white. When dry, I sanded to distress. That is always one of my favorite parts. I love to see all of the underneath colors coming through! All on-hand paint-no cost.

Next, I downloaded the words from elleclaireblog.blogspot which is where I first saw this idea. She explained how you could change the size of the words on your computer but that is not my "thing", so I just measured my board, figured out how big the words had to be and played around with my copy machine enlarging until I got them big enough. Then, I printed the words and taped them together. I then taped them to the board and went over them with a ballpoint pen. Because the paint was very flat and very thick, it made a fairly good impression and I was able to see the lines enough to paint.

Then, it truly is just a matter of filling in the lines and hitting the letters with a sanding block once again when they are dry.

There is one funny aside to this story. I did think I may have to break down and head out to buy a bottle of brown craft paint. Now I have bottles and bottles of craft paint but for whatever reason, there was NO brown. I thought about just mixing a bunch of colors but was afraid I would get black instead. As I was reading the Sunday comics, I looked at "Beekman" (I think that is it). It is the column for kids to ask science questions. I always read it to get ideas for cool experiments that I might want to do with my grand children. Today they had a question about primary colors and how there are different ones for paint/light. Any way, the last thing they said was that if you put any two primary colors together you would get a secondary color (which I'm sure we all know) but that if you mix all three primaries, you get BROWN. I tried it and got the most perfect brown ever-meant to be I tell you!!

I really love this! It makes me happy! I am going to pour a glass of wine, put my feet up and enjoy the rest of the weekend. I am threatening to turn down the A/C and start my autumn decorating this week, so stay tuned!