Painting a Quote...

I thought this might be a useful tutorial for some of you out there that are into the whole DIY thing. Maybe about 5 years ago, when I was deep into my painting business, I told my husband that I would paint a quote for him. It took until his birthday this year to get it done.

Here's how to get started. First of all, find a board. I bought this old cabinet door from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. (Check out if you have one in your area- they are great for misc. home things.) Also, think about your final product. I bought this one because I wanted it to look like it had a "frame." If I were doing something different, I might prefer a simple board without a border. (Apologies for the iPhone photos- I couldn't find my camera for the first few pictures.)

 Paint it whatever base color you prefer. Because this will eventually end up in the "Man Cave," I wanted to it to be nice and manly. Black and cream were the colors I used. Also, this base doesn't have to be this high-gloss, it's just what I already had on hand. I was actually going to just use some craft paint left over, but thought this might "distress" a bit better.

Next, print out the quote that you want in whatever font you like. This gets a little tricky, but it's basically tracing with a paint brush. I use carbon paper and transfer an outline of the letters to the board. You can see that my letters aren't exactly like the font, but close enough to look unified. (And if you look closely, you'll notice a typo that I made- but I fixed it in the end.) :) This is just a regular craft acrylic, nothing fancy.

Now, once the nice board is all finished, take it out to the garage, grab your sand paper and go to town. I really thought that I was ruining this thing with how distressed it was getting, but I just kept going. I also used a hammer, wire brush, razor cutter, nail punch, and steel wool. Yep. Distressed. :)

This is how I presented it to him, thinking that it was great and perfect, but those little sandpaper lines over the text really bothered me, as did the difference in finish (some shiny parts, some flat)

So, I finished it off with one coat of water based satin finish poly. (Minwax Polycrylic is my favorite) This will also help it last years and years. (Maybe by then I'll find more time to make another one.) :)

Total price for this gift? A whopping $1 for the cabinet door.