Saturday, June 12, 2010

Chancellor Manor Sign

I just finished my first experiement with decorative painting. Tony made me a sign post for Mother's Day, and I was charged with painting the sign to go on it. Since it was my first try and I know nothing about painting, I was a little excited and more than a little nervous about how it would turn out.

I planned to do it in three layers - white, then blue, then red.

Come to find out, painting involves a lot of waiting... which I am NOT good at. But other than that, it was really fun. I'm going to enjoy doing more of it.

I used my Cricut to cut out stars and letters to use as stencils. I painted the white, let it dry, then taped off the stars and the blue middle. I meant to tape of the "Manor" letters too, but I forgot. It definately would have been easier that way, but I made it work.

I also made a white frame for the middle.


I wound up placing the outline of the letters I had cut out (you can see it at the top of the picture) and painting inside it. Much more difficult (for me) and it took two layers since I was doing white on blue instead of the other way around. Oh well... after I did touch-up, it looked pretty good.

Next I taped off the stripes for the red. That part was really easy - all straight lines. The scary part was free-handing the "Chancellor" letters. I was afraid I was going to mess up really bad and ruin the whole thing on the last step. I hardly ever freehand anything, even in my scrapbook (I prefer to type), and I had no practice free-handing with a paint brush. But, it turned out just fine. I wrote the word on with pencil so I could correct any lumpy parts in the script, then traced over it with paint.

Yay! It's finished! I'm planning to paint seasonal signs that are a little smaller to hang on the small hooks at the bottom. Looking forward to putting my new skills and experiences to use on those!



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