Shanty Stenciled Sign

Hey guys!

Hope you all had a great weekend.  I spent mine with the fam and about 74839274 loads of laundry. Ashley and I have joked before about how we should post our folded laundry piles as our latest DIY projects.  You girls would be so impressed :-))

My latest space to tackle has been this blank space between my kitchen and living room.

It's a very long, blank space that catches my eye a lot.  I thought it could use a little something.  I decided to make a sign for it.

Because I am no free hand artist I started by purchasing a roll of Contact Paper.

I made my stencils using my Silhouette.  For those of you that have a Silhouette, this is my new favorite material for stencils!  I cut it on the same settings at vinyl and it was a perfect cut!

For the sign itself I decided to use a 1x10' board from Lowe's.  I gave it a couple of coats of Rust-Oleum Heirloom White and let it dry.  I picked a board with lots of knots and imperfections because I wanted it to look good and shanty.

After cutting my letters, I used the letter itself to space it on the sign like this.

Cute font??  I used a free font called Clarendon BT.  Love it!  And without having to use a cartridge I saved lots of time and money!

Once I had my letter placed I put the outline piece around it.

Then, I peeled the letter off!

I used my favorite acrylic paint...

...And used a stencil brush to paint on my letter.

Drying...

Here it is dry just before I shantied it up a bit.

I wanted my new sign to look old (the hubby still doesn't understand this concept) so I used a 3M 220 grit sanding block to lightly sand over the letters.  I LOVE the result.

My final step is to distress my edges a bit and get this baby on the wall.  I will show you guys that in my next post!  Thanks for stopping by!  I'm back to laundry ;-)

~Whitney