Friday, August 20, 2010

Cuisine Art

How much do you love the wall-art section of Hobby Lobby?  That delicious selection of "Kitchen" and "Laundry" and "Kiss Me" signs...I guess I have a thing for lettered signs because I love it there.  Until recently I had one of their metal "Kitchen" signs hanging above my pantry, but now that I am on a quest to bring more rustic charm to my kitchen, I decided to replace it with my own hand-painted sign.  So the HL sign is going to the consignment store and this guy took its place:


I started with two poplar planks from the woodworking section of Lowe's.  I had some fun banging on these with a hammer, saw, and screwdriver to roughen them up, then stained them with walnut wood stain.  I then layered on some black acrylic paint with a dry paintbrush, careful not to completely cover over the stained finish.  I just wanted it blackish-brown, almost a singed color.  Bonus: "singed" matches some of the dinners I make too!


The top one has black paint over walnut stain.  The bottom one doesn't--yet.

Then I spent about a week feeling neglectful of my little project while I tried to figure out what font to use.  I wanted it to be clean, readable letters that stand straight up and down.  This thing sat around forever, then I saw this post from Miss Mustard Seed, and wow, did she inspire me!  Her Fresh Berries sign is to die for.  I had already stained my boards AND knew I was using ivory paint, so when I saw this I couldn't believe it, and totally copied the font she used.  (FYI, it is Castellar).  I pieced together letters printed out from a Word document like so:


To transfer the letters I used this really convenient lettering technique I learned about recently from another great blogger, just can't remember who!  If you know, please comment and remind me, bad Mommy Blogger!  Anyway, I colored the backs of the letters with pencil (in this case white), then I turned the letters over onto the sign and carefully traced the edges with a regular mechanical pencil.  This transfers the white pencil from the back of the paper onto the wood:


Then it was just a simple task of painting (more or less) inside the lines.  When you look close you can find all kinds of imperfections.  I could have sanded them out but decided to leave them--actually, I kind of like them.
Michelle: 1
Crippling Perfectionism: 0
Go Me!


So here's my new sign hanging above my pantry:


If you are wondering how I attached the two boards and then hung them, I used an extremely high-tech method which requires expert knowledge.  Just kidding, I used duct tape and about 30 removable foam adhesive squares:


I love how this project turned out.  It is so much more personal (and I think cuter) than what I had before.  By the way, I decided on "Cuisine" because I am just so in love with everything French, and very excited about my trip to Belgium and France...next month!





P.S. I'm Lovin' the Linkys at:



The Shabby Nest
Finding Fabulous

14 comments:

  1. It looks awesome!! That is the exact font I used for the Berry sign. Your sign looks a million times better than anything you could buy at a craft store. Love it!

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  2. This is so cool! You are amazing!!

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  3. So cute. I am your newest follower. I can relate to your story because I recently gave up my business to focus full-time on my kids, especially our adopted son who has some special needs. Blogging has been a great way to connect with other moms and rekindle some creativity.

    -Stephanie
    http://binkiesandbriefcases.blogspot.com/

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  4. This is a great idea and looks wonderful in your kitchen! Hopefully I can replicate this (the painted letters kinda scare me, though).

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  5. It looks so good. And I love your high-tech duct tape job. Duct tape fixes everything! Found you at the Shabby Nest.

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  6. I'm putting this on my project list. I love how you used duct tape, I never would of thought of that but I'm going to try it.

    This might be where you saw how to do the lettering.
    http://justsomethingimade.blogspot.com/2009/03/make-your-own-vintage-style-sign.html

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  7. Thanks for the comments, y'all! Laceylady--thank you for the link to Just Something I Made...I must've seen the technique somewhere else but I am in *love* with her stuff over there. And thanks to those of you who have become followers too!

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  8. Just curious, what size font did you use?

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  9. Hi Laceylady--great question. I actually used WordArt and stretched the textbox until the letters measured about 5.5 inches. It helps if you change your orientation to landscape. I just now tried to replicate the size by just changing font size, I think it is in the range of 450, maybe a little bigger. Hope that helps! If you blog about your project let us know so we can see your great work:)

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  10. I just wanted to stop by and let you know that I linked to this post today from the new Home & Garden channel at Craft Gossip. :) My hope is to share many of the fabulous projects I see everyday with the vast CG audience. I hope you will not only stop by and subscribe to CG, but will tell your friends about the new category! Hope you see some traffic from it!

    Your feature will appear in the main Craft Gossip RSS feed, on the main home page and can be found directly here
    http://homeandgarden.craftgossip.com/cuisine-art/

    If you would like a "featured by" button, you can grab one here!
    http://homeandgarden.craftgossip.com/grab-a-craft-gossip-button/

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  11. Amanda--thank you! I have added the button to my sidebar and will be sharing the news with others as well! Thanks!

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