February Craft O' The Month: A Hand-Painted Sign.

Whew!  I have been so swamped with my day job, that I wasn't able to post this when I promised.  Please forgive.  If you didn't get a chance, take a look at the projects from January's Craft O' the Month.

OK, so I decided--and by the way, if you have ideas for something that would be a good project for COTM, please do share!  Lost train of thought--this month's COTM is going to be a Hand-Painted Sign.  DON'T FREAK if you're not a painter, because what I'm talking about is super easy peasy.  Here are a couple signs that I made for my daughter's room years ago:

Here's how I did them:

1.  Grab yourself a plain old piece of pine wood.  You can get it cheap at Home Depot or what have you.  They'll even cut it to size for you.

2.  Use plain old craft paint (Michael's) and paint one coat for the base coat.  Note that for mine, I chose a bright yellow for the base coat so that it would show through when I distressed it with sand paper.  Paint this coat on thick!

3.  Then paint another coat on that will match whatever area you plan to hang it in.  Paint on a simple little picture or use thick paint pens or a thin paintbrush, if you're tricky that way, to write a saying or a verse.

4.  Add a border if you like (see mine in white).

5.  Use fine sandpaper to distress it just enough for your underpainted layer to show through.

6.  Staple on a ribbon, raffia, or something to hang it with, and hang.  Cute, hu?

If you're lacking ideas for your sign, go here.  Also you can check out Etsy.com and search for painted signs and find some really cute ones.

Your project photos are due back to me on or before February 29th.  Hey, it's leap year!

I can't wait to see what you all come up with!  Happy painting!