The plate wall in the kitchen... well it just never grew on me. Too messy, too haphazard. So I pulled them down, patched about 47 holes and went about coming up with something else to fill the empty space.
I fell in love with this when I saw it on Pinterest. Everything about it. The colors, the words, the clean simple design. Love. I sang you are my sunshine to my children and to Bayleigh when I rocked them to sleep. I knew I wanted to make my own version and this wall would be the perfect spot for it.
A while back I picked up a few cabinet doors at the habitat re-store for 1.99. They were new doors, with no hardware holes to patch. Perfect for making signs.
I primed and painted the door white, then painted on a rectangle of yellow where I knew Happy was going to go. At the bottom I let Bayleigh paint an aqua square.
Then I cut out the words and heart using my silhouette.
Next I sprayed the whole thing with gloss gray spray paint. It looked pretty good, but I thought it needed a little roughening up. I gave it some age with sand paper, a little dry brushing, and dark tinted finishing wax.
I hung it on the wall and meh... was underwhelmed. Does anyone else do that? This is just a small little section of wall in my kitchen, but it's highly visible, so I want to hang something special there. Something with a bit of wow factor. Not to say I don't love the sign, I do. I just don't think it works here.
Take 2. Another take on one of my favorite pins. (yes I'm a pinterest addict) A little side tangent here, OK when a photo has been pinned from Tumblr, does anyone know how to then find the original site? I would like to give proper credit, but clicking on the photo only takes you to Tumblr's home page. Side tangent over.
Take 2s inspiration was also pinned from Tumblr, but this time I was able to find its origin.
I LOVE take 2. Love. It.
It is made from old fence pickets. We replaced the fence in our backyard with low maintenance vinyl and now I have lots of old pickets to work with. I didn't take any photos of the process but it was super easy. Mitch cut the pickets down, I sanded most of the white paint off and stained three of the pickets with dark walnut stain. After it dried I sanded and stained them again. I used the silhouette to make vinyl stencils and just brused on some bluish gray craft paint. Once it was dry I scuffed the letters with sandpaper.
For the HAPPY section, I mod-podged a sweet, old fashioned looking gray floral fabric onto a board and then stenciled the letters on. This time I started with white craft paint, followed by several coats of yellow to completely cover the print on the fabric.
The pickets are held together in back with 1/4 inch boards glued and screwed in place.
The skies are gray here today, but looking at this sweet sign makes me very happy.
You can find me hanging out at some of these great parties. Join me!!
