Building Inspiration

I read a lot of decorating blogs.  I'm desperately hoping to learn something someday.  I came across a lot of posts that made artwork based off this Pottery Barn sign above the bed:

This sign did not float my boat.  Still, I saw people loving this sign and making their own versions all over the place.  I wondered what I was missing.

Then I saw this version at this site and actually started to like the idea and some wheels started turning (plus they gave a tutorial on how they made it!):

I knew I didn't want a list of things.  Actually, I tried making a list, but that was too time consuming and required too much thought process for that particular night.  During Thanksgiving our pastor always says a quote that I think is a good thought and decided that's what was going to go up on this sign.

A few weeks ago Mike was in Chicago and I decided to take on this project without him.  I'd done some window shopping for supplies and noticed that I could get the slats at Home Depot for $12 and the framing wood at Lowe's for about $4.  I already had the stain, and knew the paint would only cost me $2 most.

Happy shopping day!  I got to Lowe's and found some other slats - for $14.  They agreed to give them to me for the Home Depot price.  However, I was going to get 50 slats.  Ugh.  I really only needed about 13 as I'd planned for sizing.  I got to the back and discovered an open set of slats and because they only had 23 of the 50 slats, they gave me the set for $6!  Then I got to Michael's to buy a little bit of acrylic paint, and it was in the clearance section (perfect color!) for 47 cents!  If this sign didn't work out I was only going to be out about $10!!!

I got to building.  I managed to pull out the miter saw and the air nailer and loaded up the brads all by myself.  Turns out I needed 15 slats when laid out and with the 23 I'd gotten, I barely had enough.  These are NOT quality wood pieces and a quite few were not usable.

This was the result after staining:

That only took a couple days to wear off.  I "stenciled" on the letters after printing/cutting the words onto paper.  In hindsight I would have traced and painted them because some of the paint got under the paper and the letters turned out blotchy.  But, I wasn't really hoping to make this perfect and just wanted it done.  I'm terribly impatient when it comes to projects like these.  It's called "Immediate Gratification Syndrome" and I've got it in spades.

It was made for above our mantel.  I'm not totally sure this is the perfect place but for now it works.  I expected to be able to put a picture leaning in front of it, but the sign has to be set quite far out so it leans without falling; it's taking up a lot of real estate up there.  But, it's better than the blank mantel we've had for two years!

All the stick decorations are from Michael's with coupon and the hurricane was found at Goodwill for about $2.  The rocks were selected by Jake and had been sitting in a bucket because they were "the most interesting" from our rocks around the house.

All in all, this mantel setup cost us less than $20 and I love the reminder that this quote gives us every day!