I have a fascination with all of the "keep calm and ...." signs. They are everywhere, I know. Why I never purchased one, I'm not quite sure. They look adorable, and a bunch of different Halloween versions have been popping up on pintrest lately. My original plan was to re-create a sign, print it out on cardstock and then frame it.
I did do that, well, not the framing part though. Something is wrong with my printer, so the solid background just wasn't going to happen for me. I kept getting color fades and lines and it just didn't look all that great. My perfectionism was not about to let me settle, so a little brain storming was in order.
I came up with a re-purposing project!
And I had to figure out how to paint particle board...
A while back we had to replace our 8 slot storage cube shelf. At some point it had suffered some water damage to the top (I've given up trying to figure out how or why - I just know it involved my little people). Chris broke all of the pieces down so it would be easy to dispose of. While he was doing that, I noticed most of the undamaged parts were the same size and shape as the mock canvas art you can buy. So, we set aside the clean parts for future projects. I have to give my husband credit here, he doesn't even think twice anymore when I suggest things like this. Love him for that!
Can you tell where I'm going with this??
Chris cut down one of the longer sections for me, and I filled the holes with my hot glue gun. In the future I will use wood putty or something similar, the glue left divots. When I get excited about something I have a tendency to keep pushing forward even if I know there is a better way - oops!
After the glue dried, I lightly sanded the surfaces that I planned on covering with paint. I followed some directions I found on pintrest for painting the particle board.
Then I primed the board twice, lightly sanding it down in-between coats to even out brush strokes.
Once everything was dry, I applied three, yes three, coats of craft paint. I had to let the paint dry for over an hour in-between coats. The directions called for 21 days for the paint to cure, but I couldn't wait that long. I have just been very careful not to rub it up against anything. So far so good.
I whipped up a quick "Keep Calm" design in Silhouette Studio. The skull was a pre-made graphic from their shop, and the text was done by me using the font Impact.
I used vinyl here, but you could get similar results printing out a stencil and using an exacto knife to cut out the images, it would just take a little longer and more painting would be needed.
Using contact paper to keep the placement right, I attached the vinyl and there it is!
I looove this so much!
Have a great weekend everyone!
-Lisa
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