Burlap and Wood Family Sign

This project came out of a mash up of two great ideas I've seen recently, a framed piece of burlap with a large painted initial and a painted burlap pillow with a family name and the year the couple were married.  Too lazy to make a pillow today and to impatient to find the perfect frame... I improvised and it was super fun and easy.  Plus, what a cute gift idea, even if you are doing it last minute... right ?!?

I picked up this wood plaque in the Walmart craft section for a few dollars and had planned to use it as a chalkboard sign for our family Christmas pictures, but just never quite got around to it.  Not wanting it to go to waste or stare at it for another 10 months of procrastination I thought I'd jazz it up with a little burlap and paint.  

The burlap is actually from an old coffee bag I bought at our local hardware store for $1, but you can find great super inexpensive burlap at most fabric stores.  To cut burlap straight, a great tip is to cut a small snip where you want the burlap cut then pull out one thread along that line and it leaves a perfect straight space that you can then go back and follow with your scissors.  This is much better than my normally embarrassing attempts at cutting straight, and if you know me measuring is something I tend to avoid at all costs!!  

Once you get the general size you want, use stencils (these are inexpensive ones also from Walmart) and center them on your burlap.  I did a large "W" for our last name on line 1, then EST. on line 2 and 2007, the year we got married on line 3.

To fill in the stencils I used a painters pen in dark brown.  These make stenciling on anything really easy, especially for those of us who are artistically challenged when it comes to free handing anything, plus they come in a bunch of colors.  You can usually find the pens for about 2 dollars near the acrylic paint in most craft sections.

For the board I used a layer of dark brown acrylic paint, and once that dried a thin layer of light tan.  Since you plan to distress it anyway, just slap it on the more "rustic" the better.  Don't you love that term "rustic"???  I sure do, it's my excuse for any painting project that doesn't turn out just perfect... I call it "rustic" and instantly it's perfectly imperfect... like I planned it all along!  Sneaky I know, but hey it works :)

Once everything is dry I used sand paper to rough up the edges and distress the top and finished it off with some Annie Sloan Dark Wax (my secret weapon for any furniture distressing project.. find some and buy it you will be so glad you did).

To attach the burlap to the wood, antiqued upholstery tacks work great to tie everything together.  If you want to hang this on a wall add a hook to the back and you are done.

Not counting the dry time, this probably took 30 minutes of total work.  Not too shabby for a fun little personal touch for your home or as a personalized gift.

This isn't the perfect spot, but I wanted to see how it looked on the wall and to show you the finished look.

Hope you like it and that you try one for yourself.  I'd love to see how they turn out!

Enjoy,