I've been using decals as stencils for years. Don't get me wrong, I love decals in their regular form but sometimes a project calls for distressing or other custom touches that you just can't do with decals. Like this picture frame I made a few months ago.
When I found this oil painting at my local thrift store for $2 I actually bought it for the frame. Then James saw it and really liked the painting. Well, not really the painting itself but he liked that it was a painting of an old truck covered in foliage, nature taking over. We see things like this a lot on our occasional Sunday drives through the country roads around our home. He's pretty bummed that they removed one old truck (and the dilapidated house that accompanied it) to build a new pharmacy.
OK, back to the project. After much begging persuading on my part, James realized that he was fighting a losing battle this painting wasn't a perfect fit for our new gallery wall (which is almost done, post coming soon!) and he agreed to let me turn it into something fabulous!
First, I designed my saying in my signmaking software. If you have a Cricut or Sillouette you can use it (I think...I don't really know anything about either of them). You could also use letter stickers from the craft store. Then I cut it on my plotter, weeded and taped the letters and applied them to my painting. I didn't think to take any pics of this part because I do these things every day and it didn't occur to me that you may want to see how it's done, sorry!
There's no reason for the lettering being dark red, it's just what was in the cutter at the time. Since the letters were removed it doesn't matter what color you make them.
Then using regular acrylic paint, cover the entire project, letters and all. I was going for a distressed look so I left the paint thin in some spots.
Some people prefer to remove the letters when the paint is dry...I have tried it several times and I prefer to peel them while the paint is still pretty wet, just a bit tacky. Whatever you do, don't use a blowdryer to rush the drying process, you won't be able to get the letters off without removing big hunks of paint, ruining your project.
After all the letters are removed, let the paint dry and your done! I put this back in it's original frame. It's got a great burlap border around it, so cool!
Here is mine, in it's spot on my gallery wall. Ignore the frames with their generic paper photos in them, I'm getting to them!
What do you think? Is this a project that you would try?
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