Wake Up And Be Awesome- A tutorial

 
     One of my cousins just bought her first house and was having a house warming party.  I knew that I wanted to give her a gift and I wanted it to be heartfelt.  I saw some cute reclaimed wood crafts on Pinterest and thought that I could make something similar.  Jordan has excellent taste so I was a little nervous that she might not like what I was envisioning.  Turns out, it was a great gift.

FYI- Ryan was all about helping me with this project.  As long as it doesn't involve painting and/or home maintenance, he likes to help out!  Just kidding.....maybe :)

     Here's what I made....

1.  I got a pallet board from my dad's shop, Safeway Services, and had Ryan tear it apart.  I was going to use the top bards to make the sign.  A few of the boards were a little longer, so Ryan just cut them to be the same length.

2.  I used wire cutters and removed the nails that came out with the boards.

3.  Then Ryan, used a few of the extra scrap wood, to hold the four pieces together.

4.  I stained the wood and once it was dry, Ryan nailed all of the pieces together.  He nailed the wood from the back side, so that the nail heads wouldn't show on the front.  I used Mixwax- Provincial.

Chloe helping Ryan!

5.  I knew the phrase that I wanted to paint onto the board.  I ended up free handing the "Wake Up And Be" part.  I wrote it on the board with pencil, then went over it with paint.

6.  For the "AWESOME" part, I just couldn't get the letters tall enough without running out of room.  Ryan came to the rescue and suggested using Wordart with Microsoft Word.  I was able to stretch out the word and still have it be tall.  I printed it out on paper (I don't have a silhouette machine!), then traced the letters really hard, so that they would leave a small imprint.  I was then able to see the word "AWESOME" and started painting.

7.  To hang the picture, I just used a picture hanging kits with 2 eye screws and a metal wire.  I also attached felt circles to the back boards so that the wood wouldn't rub on the walls.

In all, it took me and Ryan a couple of hours to make this.  To be honest, the hardest part was free handing all of the words.  If you have a stencil or a silhouette machine, it would be much quicker.

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