Tag Archives: tips for distressing paint

Fresh Cut Flowers and a Mason Jar!

Posted by Leanne on April 16, 2012 14 comments

Well, I have been dealing with 3 sick kids and a sick hubby since Wednesday, and I am beat! My post on Thursday let you know about my son Jordan, and how we feared he had the chicken pox. It turned out it wasn’t, but Thursday night the poor guy was sick all.night.long. And I was on mama duty, sleeping on the couch next to him, doing keep-up-on-the-cleanup-duty. Then he needed a second night on the couch with me beside him, just in case. Yesterday we figured he was good enough to take out, but alas, there we were in the parking lot of the dollar store, when Anna suddenly got sick. Yup. And who walked by but an old friend from highschool. Of course. Luckily he is an elementary PE teacher, and was very, very kind. I went inside with the baby, to buy some ginger ale, and… the baby started vomiting. Everywhere. That was not a fun ride home. Poor hubby got it by 9:00 pm. Again, on mama duty, I have now spent 3 nights in a row on the couch, have seen (and smelled) way more than I ever needed to, and I am beat! (I am writing this post Sunday night). I hope that wasn’t too much info for you all, but I needed to get it off my chest!

So now I would like to focus on something that makes me much happier, a little project I managed to pull off last week, and I love this little darling!

Fresh Cut Flowers!

What do ya think???

Here’s my “how-I-did-it”:

I started out with my piece of pine, painted the outer border brown, and the inside roughly with a blue, both from my craft paint selection...

...I used a new tip I found online: before adding the top layer of paint, apply vaseline to the areas you want to have easily distresses, as the paint won't stick to these areas. I focused the vaseline on the corners, and added a few streaks randomly on the board. Best Tip Ever! ...

(Source for the Vaseline trick: Shanty 2 Chic - awesome blog, I’ve learned many little tricks from here!)

...I then added a top coat of white paint....

...distressed with sandpaper...whew, that was easy!!! I LOVE the way both the blue and brown show from underneath...

...I had made my template on Picnik.com, and printed it out on my computer. Cut it and decided on its placement...

I colored the back of the template with pencil for the transfer method... I then used my favorite Sharpie paint pen to paint the letters in...

...traced the template with a ball point pen, and the lettering transfers onto the board...

I then took one of these plumber-thingies (oh, hubby just told me it's a 6" hose clamp)... Hubby helped with pounding a nail through 2 of the slots on this, so screws could fit through... I needed hubby's help a lot with this part of the project!

And used the hose clamp to hold my Mason Jar in place! (in case you don't know, because I didn't have a clue, the clamp tightens and loosens with the help of a drill at that big knobby part of it. You can completely open it up too, to screw it onto the board) ...After I took this picture I realized the jar didn't sit straight on the board, so you'll see in the later pictures that I adjusted the jar so the clamp sits lower...

...I waxed it the sign with Annie Sloan clear Wax, added a wire hangar to the back...

...picked our first blooms of daffodils from our garden, with a bit of "greenery" (lavender and chives), added a wee bit of twine to the mouth of the jar, and Ta-da!