Wood Name Sign

Gary and I made this as a wedding present for our good friends, Vera and Elie. Gary rounded the edge on this piece of wood and sanded it for me. I painted it, then found a great tutorial here http://diddledumpling.blogspot.com/2010/05/tutorial-vintage-looking-painted-sign.html 
 on how to transfer words to wood. I typed in the text I wanted in the size I wanted in Photoshop, then I reversed the text and printed it. Then I taped the paper to the wood and brushed water over it. This transferred the text very lightly. Then I filled in the outline with a sharpie. The paint ended up being a little too like light yellow when I was intending it to be a light tan, so I brushed diluted brown paint over the top to make it darker.

Vera and Elie loved it. Vera asked if we put an outdoor sealant on it and I didn't even think about them putting it outside, so that thought didn't occur to me, but I guess that would make sense if you were going to put it outside. I think it's adorable and I want to make one for our house.  

Carmen's Nightstand Makeover

I know Gary was hoping that he could keep this blog all to himself. But... not the case. With his permission, I'm going to add in my projects, since he did name the blog "The Garland Projects." And sometimes I want to share the things that I make. By the way, he hasn't posted in forever because we are both (well I guess mostly he is) working on a huge office makeover. It was supposed to be done by this school year, which started last week. Wuh wuh! But he's progressing nicely so hopefully in the next couple of months it will be organized and neat and we will be able to find everything we need.

Sooo... here's something I did a couple months ago. I've had this nightstand since I was a teenager and it's never been very beautiful. I've never thought of doing anything to it since Gary, being the amazing woodworker he is, will make us a bedroom set one day. But I started thinking. After the office, M needs a bunk bed. Then, I'd really like a kitchen table (we don't even have a chair for M yet and he's 2 already.) Then I'd like a built-in for our TV niche. Then, then, then. So I decided I needed to spend as little money as possible and fix what we have to not make me cringe when I walk in the bedroom door. And this was the first project I tackled.

Sanded, painted, changed the knob, distressed (I sanded a little of the paint off in a few areas and rubbed stamp-pad ink on a paper towel and then rubbed that on the sanded areas.) Done! I love the result. So cute!