(I get no revenue from any products I mention. I simply mention products and stores to let you know where I got something and what it is.)

Hello again! This might be a record, me writing another post in less than three months from the last time…

So, I had this nice board laying around for literally 4 or 5 years. It was on clearance from some store, likely Joann’s or Michaels. It’s a nice piece of pine, super smooth, three feet by six inches. And for some reason, my younger son used it to write (in black marker) that “Targets were 3 shillings.” Confused yet?

It’s because back in Illinois in middle school, his grade had this Patriot’s Day or something where the kids had jobs back in colonial times, and they had to dress up and stuff. Jack dressed up in this outfit I transformed for him, and we made some fake foam core board rifles that were also for “sale” at his stall. All I remember from this exercise was I did most of the work, the fake rifles were cool as heck, and he came down with the stomach flu the next day. Ah, memories…

But I digress. I kept this board, and just the other day, I saw it in the storage area of my basement and decided it was the perfect size and dimension for some sort of sign for the space above my kitchen windows. I was going to have it say “Many have eaten here, few have died” but that seemed too wordy and a lot of work. See, I don’t have a Cricut machine or some other device to cut vinyl lettering. That would be neat, but I like to do things old school, cuz I’m old-fashioned or something.

So I started by laying on the floor of my craft room and sketching things out in pencil on the board. But then I started thinking about the edge instead and grabbed some supplies I already had to start laying out ideas for a fun border. I’m sure somewhere in the back of my brain I was thinking about what this sign would say. I thought I wanted something for the holidays.

I could picture in my head how cute this would look with lime green beads and the fuzzy pom-poms that have just a bit of sparkle to them. Next, I found an example of lettering that I had in mind and set out to sketch some letters on graph paper. Whenever I had a repeat letter, I used my light table to trace the one I already had for consistency.

Next, I painted the wood with two or three coats of red craft paint. While that was drying, I had two important jobs to do. One, I had to paint the beads. I had just the right amount of beads, too. I wanted to use things I already had instead of needing to purchase any supplies. The second job was to liberally apply pencil on the backs of each letter for the purpose of transferring the outline of each letter onto the board once the red paint was dry.

When the red paint was thoroughly dry and I was happy with the coverage of the “18” that my son had drawn on (the other side says Targets 3 shillings and some scribbles…), it was time to transfer the lettering onto the red painted board, the old school way. I found I needed to press pretty hard to get the pencil markings to transfer onto red paint. It worked great!

Now it was time to paint the letters white. I used a tube of artists’ acrylic paint to get the maximum coverage. I didn’t have a fresh container of white craft paint and I worried I would run out. The acrylic paint was thick, but I soon got used to it and filled in the letters. The good thing about the lettering style I chose is that I knew a black paint pen was going to be used to outline all the letters, so my painting didn’t have to be spot-on perfect on the very edges of each letter.

It took two coats, even though I could’ve gotten away with one. Next, it was time to use the black paint pen (Sharpie brand) and outline each letter as well as add the drop shadow. This part made me kind of nervous because paint pens generally have oil-based paint in them and I knew a boo-boo could cause a big problem for me.

When all my beads were nice and green and had two coats of glossy Mod Podge on them, I knew I could start gluing them and the pom-poms to the edge of the board. I want to note here that I’m totally aware that these beads can easily pop off since hot glue isn’t as strong as maybe an E-6000 or superglue, but since the sign is for my house, and I know I have to carefully store it in the off-season, I was willing to take that risk. However, I laid my beads and pom-poms out a little differently and went too fast, gluing all the pom-poms on, when I realized I was short two beads. And I looked and had no more of that size. That’s when my air-dry clay came to the rescue!

I had most of the sign completed and just needed one night for the clay beads to dry. The next morning, I was able to match the green paint color, paint the beads and give them two coats of Mod Podge. I thought about coating the entire board in the Mod Podge, but decided against it. I like how the red and white is a matte finish, and the beads and black paint pen have a slight sheen.

I think the sign turned out super cute, and I have yet to install it above my kitchen window. I will do that right after Thanksgiving, when I get the rest of my Christmas decor up.

I also finished up a project I started last month, which is this puffy coffee filter wreath!

I found a few different tutorials online and only needed to glance at those to determine how I was going to make this. I purchased a foam wreath form, using a coupon from Joann’s, and I purchased 300 white coffee filters from the grocery store. I have a lot of glue sticks for my gun. I had this about half done last month and got bored (typical me) but today I decided it’s getting done! And it did. And I love it!! The neat thing about this wreath is that it can be used all year round. It’s easy to use a different hanging ribbon. Some people have dyed their coffee filters first, but I was in the mood for a stark wreath.

Well, thanks for hanging in there for my latest crafty adventure. I had a ton of fun doing these projects, and I hope it inspired you to get crafty! Who knows, you might have a blank board laying around and some good ideas rolling around your head!

Jenny