Dad's Garage

Happy New Year!!  So, I'm a few days late, a few months from my last post and not fulfilling my end of this blog "deal" that I made with you.  I have a mountain of excuses...nothing more interesting than what is occurring in your life.  My November and December roared by so quickly I never even logged on to my blog to see if you were missing me.  Sorry!  After deciding to get back to work on here, I noticed how many of you have been checking my few pages out....Thank You!!!  I'm going to try really hard to keep up the posts...really :-)

I have had a few projects to work on in the past two months, nothing too crazy.  I've been finishing odds and ends, working, baking, baking, baking and pinning on Pinterest (addictive).  Luckily, I did snap a few photos of a couple of the projects that I got to work on.  

A friend of mine asked if I could duplicate a sign she saw elsewhere, she didn't like the colors it came in and thought I may be able to help her out.  

Here's how it went:  "Hey, can you make a sign that is about as long as your arm and about this wide?"  Mind you, this conversation was on the telephone...haha.  So, this is the "size" I figured.  Remember, I don't usually measure, so it's about << This big >>

Bare Wood after being cut and routed

 

 

 

 

 

  I like the routed look of wood and since the sign was going in "Dad's Garage", I thought it would look better if it were more finished looking; however, it also needed to look oldish according to my friend and it needed to be a rusty orangeish red color.  A little vague, but I ran with it....




Since what was described to me was a sign that had tools on it with words on top, this is the design I came up with.  I masked off the areas of the tools and then painted the wood with the rusty orangeish red color.

Letters for Dad's Sign

I used my handy plotter and some extra vinyl to create letters for the sign.  I then decided that I wanted to paint the letters on and not use the vinyl so that I could get an older looking style to the piece.

Letters are painted on

I got the letters painted on and it wasn't doing "it" for me.  The words were getting lost in the bare wood tools.  I still had to stain everything, but I was afraid the words would get too lost after I did that.  What to do??  Oh, I know.....

Dad's Garage....finished

I decided that if I outlined the letters in a fine black they would pop a little more.  I think it works.  I outlined each letter by hand, sanded, stained, sanded and sealed.  This sign was "perfect" according to my friend.  I got the right color, the right oldish look and the right size.  

Here is the inspiration picture for this sign...so what do ya think?