French Sign

I picked up this really interestingly shaped wood piece at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago with every intention of making it over and putting it in my Etsy shop. 

However, I thought the size might be good for that space over our bed in the master bedroom.   It looked pretty good when I hung it there just to get an idea of size, but I’ll know better once I see these pictures.   Since I went along the lines that I’d be keeping it, I decided to try something a little different for me.  I started off by giving it a base coat of Duck Egg, which I have in the room already.

**This is where the picture would be if I had remembered to take it in its Duck Egg state.  Sorry about that, but just imagine it coated in Duck Egg.

Then, using one of the techniques I learned at the Annie Sloan paint workshop I went to, I added Old White to the top.  Now this is a first for me and I was a little nervous about how it would come out.

The above picture shows one coat of Old White over the Duck Egg; I did two coats.  I then took some sand paper and lightly sanded so that the Duck Egg would show through.

I wanted to add a design to it and had a few reverse image graphics that I had copied on the copier at the library and chose this one.  This is from The Graphics Fairy.

Since I had a pretty good result from the Mod Podge transfer method on the bread board I did here, I decided to try it on this as well.  I found the bread board came out good for me when I did it at night and then left it to dry overnight {no temptation to rub it away too soon!}.  The next morning I wet it with a paper towel and used my finger to rub away the paper.  The best tip I have read when doing this is to cut the design as close as possible so you don’t have so much excess paper to rub away.

Once that was dry I added a coat of clear wax.  Then came in and added a coat of dark wax.

Here it is over the bed!

This is the third thing I’ve tried here and I’m hoping the third times the charm!