Faux Driftwood Noel Sign

Ever have a blank wall that you don't know what to do with? Well, this was designed for my big, blank wall...but, short story short, it has never seen that big, blank wall since it looks too good on this one :) Eventually...hopefully...I'll find something else for the wall lol. Until then, it'll just continue to annoy me.

 I'm really digging my new technique to make new wood look old. I decided that it makes it looks like driftwood since there's a ton of gray tones. I wanted a soft look for my front living room this Christmas, so this look worked perfectly. You can find the tutorial on how to do it here.

I went back to my childhood with this decor also :) I wasn't in the mood to search for a stencil large enough to fit the wood and I'm definitely not good at free handing. So, you'll see what I came up with below :)

Here's the supplies I used:
4 pieces of 1x12 wood cut at 15"
Weathering wood technique (paint and stain)
Printer/paper
Pencil
Ruler
Craft paint
Berry garland
D-ring for hanging

For the first step, I just weathered the wood. I then stained the edges with a darker stain.

I placed the d-rings in the center on the back for hanging. You'll want to do this now, rather than at the end so you won't mess up your garland.

 For the letters, I printed out the N, E, and L in all caps as big as I could on a normal sheet of paper.  I then turned over each paper, grabbed the pencil and started coloring in around the outside lines of the letter. For the most part, you can see this through the backside.

 Once that was done, I lined up the paper on the wood where I wanted the letter, face up this time. I took the pencil again and started tracing the outline of the letter...really hard. Like, really really hard and going over the lines multiple times.

 I was then left with a perfect outline of the letter on the wood. I love this transfer method :) I don't know what I ever did this with or for when I was younger, but somehow it stuck with me.

 Since I didn't have a stencil to stop my paint from going out of the lines, I used a ruler instead and lined it up against each line and then painted into the letter next to it. This technique would obviously only work with straight lines. If you have a pretty scripted and rounded letter, then you would be best off to outline the line again with a paint pen.

 I then filled in the rest of the letter with the paint.

 For the "O", I used the berry garland and hot glued it in a circle on the wood.

I love how this turned out; it is such a great soft feel.

 Here it is in the front room. The color (or lack there of) ties into the pillows perfectly. I thought it might be too much next to the gallery wall, but I think the scale is large enough that it works.

This would also look great all on one row. If I had ended up putting it on the big, blank wall I would have done all one row. Oh well, maybe next year :)