A BIG sign and some thrifty finds

During my last trip to the Home Depot, I spotted several planks of wood in the cull bin that looked pretty decent. The cull bin is where they put damaged, warped or otherwise flawed pieces of wood and drastically mark them down in price. I spent $2 and came home with 3 pieces (one that was about 4' long, and two about 3' each).

I'd been wanting to make some really big signs to sell, and right off the bat I knew these imperfect pieces of lumber would be perfect for that!

My trial sign started off with a light sanding, then a coat of warm white spray paint. I taped off a 1" border and painted that with brick red craft paint. Then I used my printer ink transfer technique (found in this tutorial) for the letters.



Some sanding to make it look less new, a quick wipe of polyurethane and a wire hanger on the back and it's done!

Sooo easy. I think next time I'll bang up the wood with a hammer, then maybe use some stain to age it even more.

But for a first try, I'm happy with it.

And just for fun, I wanted to show you what I picked up on my last visit to the Bargain Center. Isn't this cute? I'm not sure if it's for organizing silverware at a picnic or holding gardening tools or what, but I love the wood and that the divider is removable.

Gotta figure out how to get rid of that stenciling though...



This suitcase and lidded basket are in really great shape.

I was surprised at how perfect the inside of the suitcase is.



Not loving the image printed on the lid of the basket, but a little bit of fabric or even some scrapbook paper will take care of that in a flash.

I'm not much of a hot beverage drinker, but I just couldn't pass up that awesome vintage plaid Thermos. The inside of it looks like it's never even been used! The red candlestick will definitely be going another color, but I love the size and shape. And the blue lamp base will get painted to look like the one in the photo below.