Name sign {quick tutorial}

This was a fun project that I did "pre-blog."  I moved it (again) and decided I should post it for all to see.

I first had it where it is now, but decided to try it here after I found and painted the hutch.  So I had the hubs take it down and I "set" it in place to make sure that's really where I wanted it.  There it sat for....um....over a year? :)  Lazy are we?  I was tired of it on the to-do list, so the other day I did it myself...which is what usually happens.  Hmmm....wait a second....seems like someone around here knows that!

Somewhere between moves, the board warped and cracked, but it adds to the age of it and I love it even more.

It's made from a 1x12, cut down.  I first printed my letters on paper and taped the all together to what it was going to look like.  I then cut my letters in vinyl and figured out the spacing to know how long the board needed to be.  (You could use a transfer method and hand paint the sign.  Sanding off after would make it age beautifully!)

I coated the board in black, then brushed it white, then very lightly and sporadically dry brushed a little, black, brown and red (who knows, there might even be other colors there).  I just grabbed whatever cans I had at the time.  All leftover latex.  Random, I know.  This is before I knew how to sand the age into it.  Which is how I'd do it now.  

Didn't seal it, just waited for it to dry, put the vinyl on a hung it over the window in the kitchen.  It was either there or the playroom and since the tornado playroom is upstairs and I wanted this to be in a place where it would be seen by someone who would actually appreciate it, I chose the kitchen.

This is the view from our living room, but you can pretty much see it across the room when you come into the house.

The wall adjacent on the left is where I'm going to put our giant chalkboard (more on that later) and the wall to the right was my first big furniture piece to paint, and I probably did it all wrong, but its been a couple of years and its holding up just fine!  (Looking at the pictures now, the lone rooster weather vane needs to go....)