Friday, September 23, 2011

The Earth laughs in flowers…

After showing you my new potting bench a couple weeks ago, I realized that while the table is nice, the rest of the area is a little sad and lonely looking.  I thought it needed some outdoor art to liven things up!  I put on my thinking cap and came up with a cute idea for a garden sign to hang over the potting bench.

Lucky for me, I found an old shelf in the garage leftover after my little office closet update.  Hooray for not throwing things away!  It was the perfect size for my needs.  So I set to work in Publisher and designed this lovely garden quote sign. 

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It was unfinished wood on one side (thank you previous owners for not painting both sides of your office shelves… serendipity, no?) so I thought a nice gray stain with some “antiquing” would look cool and natural.  I used acrylic paint watered down to wash the gray color.  Then I added the quote with a paint pen, and drew on some flowers and vines.  The cute font is from dafont.com; it’s called Leaf1.  Once it was all dry, I added some distressing to make it look not so new.  I sanded off the edges and some of the paint from the letters just to rough it up a bit.  <—Really need to get an orbital sander to help with jobs like this!  Lastly, I sealed it with three coats of polyurethane to help it stand up to the elements out on the deck.  Here’s how it looks hanging over my potting bench:

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It gives the area some presence now, instead of just being a random table in the corner. :)  Can’t wait till Spring comes again so I can get some use out of this thing!!

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I love my new sign and I am planning to make another one for my mother’s nearly-completed greenhouse!  There’s still another old shelf to be used, after all!  The next one will be cherry stained with white lettering, I think.  Simple. 

What do you think of my new outdoor art?

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