Radiate Love

For Thanksgiving we had my family, my godparents & family, and my aunt & her husband over. Did I mention that we have a small 2 bedroom apartment? So I was running around like crazy trying to get the house all decorated and pretty before Thanksgiving. I did quite a bit, only I didn't have time to post everything. Here's one of the To-Do list things that I finished last week.

I knew the minute I saw this sign I had to make one myself. So I did. Here it is:

I picked up some wood from Lowe's. I cut 6 pieces of wood the same height. I had also picked up a skinny piece. I cut that in two and nailed each piece into the back. This held all the pieces together. I realize now that I didn't get a picture of the back.

I found this post on how to make old signs. But I couldn't decide on another color besides green. So I decided to only use green on top of white.

 I primed the wood, then painted it white. Then painted it green using acrylic paint. I spent too much time to tell you trying to make the perfect green, mixed with white and black. Only to get annoyed with my indecisiveness and pour the green directly on the wood from the bottle, without mixing.

Then I got a little nervous with how bright the green was. So I painted a layer of gray over top. Being impatient, the green wasn't fully dry. So it mixed in with the green rather than coating a layer on top of the green.

I let it dry. Then sanded. I initially went at it with the sander. Mistake. It went right to the bare wood, showing no sign of the white. Only when I lightly hand sanded did I actually get the distressed look I wanted with the under white layer showing through.

I picked up the wooden letters from A.C. Moore. Coated them with white paint and then sanded them a bit for the distressed look.

Then it took me forever to decide which way to put the letters. Once I decided, I glued the letters on with wood glue and let it dry for 2 days.

Originally, I was thinking this would go in the bedroom. But after finishing it, I decided that it didn't look right next to the monogram.  So this baby is now hanging in the staircase from the foyer to the apartment. So it's the first thing you see when you come, and the last thing you see when you leave :P