I Finally Finished a Project!

That is right. I did it! I finally did it! It has been several weeks since I have finished anything to post. Not for lack of trying. It just seems every project takes way longer than it should and has terrible "oh no! It is ruined!" moments. And I am not just talking about the ugly stage. That is normal. My projects lately have hit a way more than normal quota of ugly. If you are one of those that enjoys it when a blogger shows you the mishaps along the way instead of just the perfect endings, you are going to LOVE me.
Lets get started on the project I finished. This is the front entrance to my home. Yep, in that yard. In between those two buildings. Needless to say, first time visitors struggle to find us.

 

There is a sign hanging from the eaves with our house number but it easily gets lost in the shadows so I thought I would make another one that would be easier to see.
I had this old shelf that I made for my college dorm.

It has was never very sturdy and since we moved here, it has been sitting outside forlornly. So I scavenged a few boards off of it and sanded them to clean up the water stained areas and distress the paint a little bit. (the bottom one is sanded and the top to aren’t yet)

I used Gorilla wood glue to glue them together. Worked like a charm!

And then clamped them together. They tended to roll up when I had them clamped as tight as they needed to be so I put a weight on top. The drawer from the project that won’t end did the trick.

Proper assistance is key during all steps of this project. Hiya pup!

Next I broke out my beautiful Silhouette that I got for Christmas. This thing is a dream. You should see how excited I get just being able to quickly cut multiply PERFECT circles at exact dimensions. I may be a nerd for that, but circles are really hard to do by hand. A tip if you have a vinyl cutter too, you can use contact paper instead of transfer paper to take the vinyl off the backing and smoothly put it on your project. It is sooooo much cheaper.

I am showing you what it looks like because I had difficulty finding contact paper the first time but eventually found it in the drawer liner section at Wal-Mart. I first looked at craft stores and no one even knew what I was talking about.
http://myrepurposedlife.blogspot.com/2011/03/silhouette-sd-how-to-cut-and-apply.html isn’t the only one who makes a decal and sees a stencil. I put the outline of the leaf I used on wax paper to save for another time. She also has great tutorials and videos on how to apply your Silhouette-d vinyl.

Okay, here is where things started to go wrong and I stopped taking pictures because I thought I would have to scrap the whole thing anyways. I decided it would be a great idea to use my dark walnut stain to further distress my sign. For whatever reason, the white paint turned purple. A dark violet purple. It was awful. I freaked out and threw it in the kitchen sink and through some bleaching and sanding and white washing, got it un-purpled enough to move on.
I tried to clean it up well and wait patiently for it to be thoroughly dry before I applied my vinyl but apparently, I wasn’t patient enough. As soon as I got the vinyl near it, it lost its stickiness. I freaked out again and ran upstairs and grabbed some spray adhesive and clear spray paint. And then I stood there with them in my hands and stared at the sign willing it to be thoroughly dry and pouting.
When my pout the drying was done and with the front of the vinyl decal attached to the contact paper and the back-should-be-sticky-side out, I sprayed it thoroughly with the spray adhesive. I pressed it down on my boards and rubbed it firmly with a used gift card and then peeled back the contact paper. The contact paper removes more easily if you pull it back on itself as close to horizontal as possible (if you are working in a horizontal position). I rubbed it down some more with the gift card and smeared some Mod Podge under any parts that still were not sticking. After that, I gave it several good coats of the clear spray paint in hopes that it would create a bond around the edges. It seems to have worked!
I had trouble deciding where to hang it. I wanted it on the gate but there is a monster spring there. I thought maybe under the mailbox.

But that didn’t seem to really “pop” to me. So I tried it on the right side.

No. That’s not it either… I guess spring or no spring, I want it on the gate.


It isn’t as reflective as these pictures seem. I was running out of perfect daylight.
To hang my new house numbers, I simply screwed two screws into the top and tied hemp twine between them. See?

It may not make my home perfectly easy to find but I definitely think it will help people at least know if they are in the right yard. And it only cost me about $2 for the vinyl and a few tears.
If you like the leaf I used, you could swap me for your own on whoopDwhoop.
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