Hand-Painted Decor

When I was growing up, tole painting seemed to be "the thing" if you were into crafting.  Everyone's homes were accessorized with cutesy tole-painted signs, figurines, and other knickknacks; some of my friends even included tole painting in their birthday party activities.  I, however, was not very skilled in this area; my tole painting projects usually ended up in the reject pile while I scrubbed paint off of my fingers and clothes.  So when I made this little decorative sign a few weeks ago, I truly was shocked that A) I thought of it in the first place, and B) I liked the way it turned out!  It's by no means perfect, but I can't help but smile when I look at it.

 TA-DA!

I had been perusing various craft blogs and had seen a lot of "subway art" signs that people had made, when suddenly this design popped into my head.  The inspiration comes from the hymn "Love at Home".  I don't have step-by-step pictures of how I created this, but it was pretty easy.  Mr. W and I bought a sheet of MDF from the hardware store and had them cut it to a 1-foot square.  I painted the background and then freehand-painted the house and heart.  The text was the most time-consuming part, but it went better than I thought it would.  I found a font that I liked and typed up the words, enlarging them to the size I wanted, then printed them off (I used the text "outline" option to save on ink).  I traced the letters on the back side of the paper as darkly as I could with a pencil, then arranged the words on the board and traced over the top of them, which transferred the pencil lead from the back side of the paper to the board.  I used a really thin paintbrush to fill in the letters, then once it was dry, I sprayed the whole thing with a clear sealant.  It only took me a couple of hours, including drying times, and was inexpensive, too; the MDF was only a couple of bucks and the paints were on sale.  For the first time ever, I can be proud of a tole painting project! :)