The Big Reveal!

I'm so excited for the BIG REVEAL!

Can you see it? Can you see how fabulous it looks? No? Well, honestly, from here, neither can I! This has turned into another one of those projects that, unless I tell you, you probably would have no idea just how much blood, sweat and tears went into it. That is, unless you visit me often and get up close and personal with my kitchen. Then you will see it! There are no more grout stains that, no matter how much bleach and scrubbing you use, you can't get them clean!!

I must say that I am pretty proud of myself and this project. I have never done this before and I think I did a pretty good job. It is far from perfect but, the places that aren't so great are places where the tiles were either uneven to begin with or where there was hardly a grout line to begin with. My son-in-law dropped by yesterday and was asking me about what I was doing and I think I might even have impressed him a little with my tales of sawing out the old grout. That was a hard, messy job! In the end, this may be one of those cases where "if I had only known", I might not have moved forward but now that it is done, I am so glad that I did. Up close and personal it looks good! Of course, now it is like getting that brand new car and being a bit paranoid until you get that first ding or scratch...I don't want anything that isn't supposed to hitting these sparkly counters. Lol

Today is one of those days where I am running in ten different directions. Not because I have to but because I want to. I'm out in the yard then in the garage and then back to the house. Somewhere in all of that, I had an idea for a sign that I saw and thought I would give it a try.

I found a free pumpkin patch image to download (from sincerelysarad.com) and it was even editable so I could add my hometown. I thought that was fun. I didn't want to have to buy any supplies so I found a hunk of wood about 3/4' thick that would work but then also had some gallon paint stir sticks. For whatever reason, I decided to go with the sticks.

Out to the garage I went to my trusty friend, the miter saw. I just love that thing. I stacked up the sticks and in one swift swipe, they were all the proper length. Then, I used some wood glue for long time holding and hot glue for immediate hold to brace them all together.

I gave the back and the edges a coat of the Waverly antique gel stain.

When that was dry, I ModPodged on the sign and used my brayer to make sure there were no air bubbles.

It dried so nicely that I didn't put another coat of ModPodge on the top. But, I will say that it is about at this point that I realized that ALL of the letters on the sign are upper case except where I added my hometown. I really wish I had seen that earlier but, since this has gone so seamlessly so far, I decided to just go with it. I will say my OCD self was very tempted to just soak off the print and start over...but, somehow, I resisted that temptation. Lol

After this I decided that some distressing was in order so it looks like the sign has been hanging outside for awhile. I just used some orange, green and taupe colored chalk paint and dry brushed it on.

And this is where I got very excited. After all of the trouble I had rusting things last year, I had been on the look-out for a source so I didn't poison myself using chemicals that still didn't work to rust things like wire. I was absolutely giddy when I found some wire because I use wire all of the time...except that, since the day the wire arrived, I don't think I have done another craft that needed it...until today. And, of course, my trusty Dremel is so much more convenient than dragging out the "big gun" drill.

Once it was done, I looked for a home. It could definitely hang but I am not the hugest fan of small, hanging signs.

But, I thought I liked it better leaning up against something else. I actually found a few places but, nothing really jumped until I hit the foyer and realized that the weathered wood pumpkin with the rusty leaves would be the perfect place...and, the only place where the arrow actually pointed "into" the house. Not important but for some reason, a detail I couldn't ignore. Again, a little OCD over here.

Look how that beat up rusty sign just plays off of all of that other rust...sigh!!!

I'm still kicking myself over those lower case letters...and in all honesty, if I had not just spent the last week killing myself over that grout work, I probably would be re-doing it but I just don't have it in me. Know when to fold 'em! Stay safe and stay tuned.