I am excited to share this little (well, big!) project with you!    Here’s how I did it:

Start with a sanded, clean, preferably not warped piece of plywood.  I used what I had on hand and it was very thin and had been leaning against a wall for a while, so it was warped.

Next I painted the board with a dark gray color.  I used a brush because I wanted a sort of dry-brushed uneven effect.

I chose a lighter gray for the second paint color and again used the brush.  After the paint was dry i went over it with some sandpaper, especially along the edges, to give it a little character and let some of the darker paint and wood peek through.

Print out your design to the size of your board.  I used Photoshop because that’s what I’m most efficient with, but you could easily used Publisher, Word, or whatever you have.  Tape the papers together and tape it down to the board with painters tape to keep it anchored.  (Yep, pun totally intended.)

I didn’t get a photo of the chalking process, but what I did was lift up a sheet at a time and rub a piece of white chalk all along the back of the paper.   Make sure you are holding the chalk against the paper longways.  You can see more about this technique on this post at Crazy Wonderful.

After the back of the paper is coated with chalk lay it back down and began to trace around your letters or image with a pencil.  I used a pen for part of this and it didn’t work nearly as well.  The chalk will leave a mark where you traced!

It took me a couple of nights to get the entire piece transferred.

After that I used a paint pen, like this one, and traced around the edges of the design.  Then I went back and filled it in.

Because of the warping, we chose to just screw the wood to the wall.  You could probably use some sort of picture hanging system, but again, your plywood would need to be straight and probably thicker.  Make sure you get at least one of the screws in a stud!

We used screws with washers, 4 along the top and 4 along the bottom,  and I think it turned out pretty cute!

The Ugly Truth

I have been working on this piece since October.  I admit, there was quite a bit of procrastination involved.  I tend to get all paralyzed with procrastination when I want something to turn out great, but am not sure that I won’t screw it up.  Also, not to throw anyone under the bus, but someone (*cough*hubby*cough*) did their fair share of procrastinating when it came to hanging it up. 😉

Also, you may have noticed my last post was November 20th, three weeks ago, and before that I was in the middle of my 30 Days of Thanks posts.  I couldn’t make it longer than two weeks posting everyday.  I’m just not that great at blogging, I guess.  And that’s okay, I think.  I don’t think anybody out there cares to read my ramblings every single day.  Rest assured, I was thankful the last two weeks in November, and I did not, in fact, fall off the face of the earth.

How was your Thanksgiving, by the way?