Wednesday, November 25, 2015

DIY gone awry

For over a year, I've had some perfectly patina'd picket fence slats in the garage.  I was going to make shabby chic type signs with them, got unmotivated and there they sat.  I was getting the feeling the Mr was going to chuck them if I didn't do something with them and with a self imposed Christmas decorating deadline looming, I decided to hop into an idea I had last year.  Funnily enough, this idea failed last year too as a pencil tracing technique on a stained piece of wood didn't work and I said screw it.  I was determined to make it work this time!

I took the pickets and arranged every other board facing the same way so it didn't look like I ripped a fence out of someone's yard and ran.


I had scrap board that I cut to screw into the back of each slat.


But before that, I had to see if our shortest screws would work with the scrap wood and slats...


As you can see, that would've poked through so I had the Mr pick up 3/4" screws instead of the 1" ones we had on hand.

I installed another scrap piece in the back and screwed in a D ring that holds 60 lbs on the back.


I sealed the back with clear primer in case there were any buggers that tried to take up residence in there.

Since I don't have one of those fancy pants Cricut (affiliate link) thingys, I had to go old school and print out my saying and then use an exacto knife to cut it out.



I used a pencil to trace it onto the boards and got to painting.


After I was done with my first coat, I saw it...



Did you catch it?

Tannenbaum is misspelled.

BALLS!

This project is doomed.

I refused to let it get to me.  I painted a few coats of Pure White Annie Sloan paint over it after I sanded it down and put a light coat over the other slats to try to save the natural distressing.


I won't lie...I died a little inside losing all of that beautiful natural patina.

I reprinted and after checking the spelling 60x, repeated the process.

I put a coat of wax on it to seal everything in and keep the paint from chipping off.


Now it's hanging up on the wall to greet everyone as they come in!



The lesson, be persistent even when the crafting Gods are pissing in your Cheerios!

Have you ever bombed a DIY project?  Were you able to save it or did you scrap it?

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6 comments:

  1. It looks great on our wall. I know it stinks that it took you extra time and all that but it definitely was worth it!

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  2. I'm not much of a DIYer so I don't really have projects to keep or scrap. Your sign looks really cool, and I always like to see what talented people like you come up with.

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  3. Nice save girlfriend! Wish I could say the same for my faucet repair lol. Having alot of trouble with my dry bar. Our fave Citristrip has let me down...after removal I am stuck with a very gummy residue, can't use much chemical, it's in the basement, grrrr. Have you ever had that result?

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    1. Hmm, did you use stripping pads? Really rough and kind of removes the gummy stuff as you go. Then I will usually go over it with those industrial blue paper towels before putting on the next coat. I hope that helps!

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  4. Oh noooooo!!! But you did a great job salvaging it and it looks fabulous!!!!! ❤️

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  5. This turned out to be beautiful!! I love the font you used for the words. I used to do a lot more DIY stuff than I do now, although I was never good in the patience area. My mom was the creative one and could do just about anything with nary an effort. It always came naturally to her, whereas I had to work at it and still fell short. I admire people like you who have such creativity flowing through your veins. I'm so glad you didn't just scrap the whole thing and kept working on it. It turned out GREAT!!!!

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