Welcome! I have a few more Christmas-y projects to share today, starting with a really simple 5" x 7" wooden plaque. I had put a base coat of a royal blue chalk paint (Tommy English Blue, to be exact), then waxed the edges and painted a white topcoat without really having any idea what I was going to do with it. (How's that for a plan?) With a holiday season coming up, a Christmas sentiment seemed perfect.
This particular sentiment was one that I had lettered time and time again in different styles while practicing lettering on my iPad, so I simply found one of my practice pages that I liked, printed it out, and then transferred it to the wooden surface using graphite transfer paper. You can see where I have transferred it above. Here is my file if you need a quick Christmas project: View this photo . (It should come up in a window where you will be able to copy or save the file to your computer.) You're welcome to use it if it helps!
I took the easy route on this one after finding that my brush lettering on chalkboard skills were a little rusty the other day: for this one, I used two sizes of red paint pen (fine/3mm and medium/6mm tips). It was fast and seriously EASY. I used a mono weight style with my lettering so that I wouldn't even have to go back and do thicks and thins. Mono weight works well for whimsical lettering anyway, so I lucked out there. :-)
Finally, I added three small rusty bells and a twine bow--simple! I put one more coat of Tommy Neutral Wax on the entire front after everything was dry and then buffed it to a soft sheen a few hours later. The wax protects the chalk finish, which can otherwise be somewhat fragile. (That's what make chalk paint so easy to distress.)
Now, as requested, I took a few pictures earlier today of some of our previous years' wooden ornaments. Some of my pictures had too much glare from the sun, but I'll share the ones that were good below, as well as a picture of the Christmas tree. We keep it pretty simple. I don't enjoy taking down decorations in January. So I remember that when I'm putting them out in November. ;-)
This is a favorite for obvious reasons. . . Who can resist that baby face?
I have no idea where we found this pattern--could have been a stamp set, or could have been in a periodical. Anyway, it is NOT original, but I liked it, and Rick cut it out for me to paint.
The next two ornaments were from old Stampin' Up stamp sets. I can't remember the name of the set and don't still have it, but I know it was Stampin' Up!
(Also SU--probably the same set as the one before, but I'm guessing that it's from ten years ago or so.)
And here's our tree. Usually we have a LOT of snow on the ground by now. This year the ground is still bare, but I'm certainly not complaining! Tomorrow I will have one more project that Rick and I have spent a few days on, and then I'll be getting back to cards after that. I hope you've enjoyed the little crafty projects though. Thanks for visiting,
Supplies are for the first project--the Merry Christmas plaque at the top of the post.
5 x 7 wooden plaque
sand paper
Tommy Chalk Paints in English Blue and White
3mm and 6mm red paint markers (I used Painters brand from Walmart)
