Wood Painting with Sisters

Jennifer was back in Wisconsin for a visit and wanted to do something with Andrea, Heather, Amanda, and I one night. Only Andrea and I were available as Heather and Amanda were out of town. We wanted to do something creative and since Sheboygan doesn’t have a wine and paint place we opted for Board and Brush – paint your own sign place.

I’ll be honest I was not overly enthusiastic about this idea once I started looking into it. First I thought $65 was pricey to paint a price of wood regardless of size… a small sign and a large sign cost the same. Sure they have to cut out all the stencils for you but still… Most of the design options would not work in our apartment that doesn’t have a lot of open wall space.

After narrowing it down to a couple of choices, I had the hubby help me decide. We went with a sign for the kitchen.

Despite my initial hesitation about this whole wood painting thing, it turned out to be an enjoyable evening. The three of us booked a private party which was nice – we had a lot of 1 on 1 attention with our fabulous instructor, Kayla.

First we had to prep out wood. We had to sand the entire piece of wood.

After that I was the lucky one – I actually had to assemble my sign since it was 2 boards. I got to use power tools… let’s just say I will leave that to the hubby in the future. Luckily the instructor was able to assist me since apparently 1 glass of hard soda was too much for me to be able to handle the drill. Next time I’ll pick a sign that doesn’t need drilling.

Once my board was put together, it was time to stain our boards. There were a variety of stains to choose from depending on what look you wanted. Since I wanted to go with Badger colors to match my kitchen, I went with a lighter stain. You could also do a wash over the stain to give it another color or look which Jennifer did.

After we were high on fumes, it was time to apply our stencil and paint. This was not as easy as it sounds. It required 2 people to peel off the contact paper from the stencil to make sure all the little bits and pieces of the stencil came along with it – one to hold the stencil and one to peel. Then you had to stick the stencil to the wood and make sure all the bubbles were out to avoid paint running.

Finally it was time to paint the stencil. You didn’t want to use a lot of paint otherwise it would run. It was more like daubing the paint on. I was lucky that I had just words and 2 colors. Andrea had a bunch of leaves and Jennifer actually had 2 stencils. Once the paint was dry, we carefully peeled off the stencil and sealed it. Andrea got some sparkle and Jennifer did her other stencil with glitter paint.

All in all it wasn’t a bad evening. I had fun. I made a cool sign but I’m still not liking the $65 price tag. They do have some make and take events where you drop in, make a sign, and take it home for ½ price. It’s just not personalized. Maybe I’ll do a holiday one like that sometime. I like the concept and if I was crafty (and a Circut Owner), I could probably make them for a cheaper.

However, don’t let my dislike of pricey things stop you from making one. Go do it. I promise you will like it.