Benefit Wood Plaques

YAY!! Sharing one of my crafts for the first time!! My heart is pounding… so excited yet nervous that I will sound stupid!!

Here is the Story behind the craft that I am sharing with you today. My brother-in-law has kidney problems and has many medical bills and will need a kidney in the near future. A great group of people put together an Auction to help raise money. Their main event was a bachelor/bachelorette auction and since I am married and could not participate in it, I decided to make some wood plaques to enter in the silent auction. Proud to say they all went for around 60 bucks!!

On to the making of my wood plaques… A while ago my husband and I made something (don’t remember what) out of 1x6s and we had a few short boards left over. My husband was going to throw them in the burn pile but I yelled at him and went and put them in the garage. The hoarder that I am said "Someday I will use these". Well this was the day I dug them out and said "It's a good thing I kept these."

 

I decided to go with more of a wore vintage look so I cut the corners off, gave my 2 ½ year old a hammer and let him go at the board to give it some character. We then sanded down some of the rougher edges so no one would get a sliver.

Here is a what my board looked like after Ty got done.

 

I like doing a base coat, the one pictured I used a dark brown. The paint that I used is a thicker oil based paint made for outside projects so did not feel the need to use a primer. When I use a thinner indoor paint, I do a quick coat of primer.

Over top of the base coat, I put a lighter color (this came from my bedroom) so my wording can be a darker color and standout more. It doesn’t have to be perfect because after I apply the light color, I will take a piece of sandpaper and scuff it up to give it a worn look.

 Before Sanding

 After sanding

Opps…

The harder part is picking out the design and what color you should go with. Everyone has a different taste and different color scheme in their house… well since I am using paint that I have in my cupboard, I picked a red color that I have in my Kitchen. I love swirls and butterflies so for my first design ~ Swirls and a Butterfly.

The wording is also hard but everyone loves seeing the word Love right?!? After I got done I noticed I had an open spot that looked odd on my board so I add the word unconditionally and put it in the same brown as the base coat so it wasn’t all red. I also gave the words and designs a worn look by using sandpaper. 

Plaque #2… I like to print out the designs and place it on my board before painting to see what it will kinda look like. For this one I used a black base coat. For the flower, I used toilet paper rolls. I think I cut them about an inch thick and applied with super glue. I painted them a yellowish color and speckled the red on the outside.

 

Plaque #3… I don’t remember where I saw the quote me & you but I thought it was cute and different. Don’t see this very much on other decor so thought it would be something unique. This board was a little shorter too so it fit it perfect and I made the ends round instead of the cut corners. Base coat was a brown. To make the “me and you” stand out more I did the design a lighter color like the background and put the wording in the dark brown.

I hope you liked them!!  I will be posting more of these down the road as I truly enjoy making them!! Hopefully I inspired someone else to continue with their passion even if you don’t always have the time to fit it in. Life is better lived when it is enjoyed! Happy Painting!!