A Horse Is Of Course A Piece Of Art

 Remember when I said I was into rustic?  (I said it here.)  Well I’ll say it again; I’m really into rustic!  Another thing I do is hang on to Pottery Barn Catalogs forever!  This planked pony art piece was in one such catalog that I’ve been hanging onto since God knows when.  I looked for something similar everywhere because God also knows I’m not paying crazy money for anything.  Since I didn’t find a suitable replica, I decided to go ahead and try to make it.   What did I have to lose?   I already had everything I needed on hand.  Since I didn’t have three separate boards like the original seems to  be constructed of, I decided to use a similar sized piece of wood that was originally the door to my crawl space.  Sorry hon!  When my husband saw I had taken it, he said we’d have one cool door for our crawl space.  As if!  I get the feeling he doesn’t much care for my brand of crazy creativity. 

Here’s how this copy cat art went down.  I had the piece of pine (or some other wood type) board.  I took three screws and a nail out of it and filled the holes with wood filler.  Then I sanded it with my ever so cute orbital sander that my hubby *swoon* bought me.  I wiped it down and took a break to clean my house.  It was starting to look like the show “Hoarders”. 

I came back later to it for staining.  I had a walnut stain left over from another project and I just used that.  Hindsight, the original piece has a more reddish tone, I probably should have used the mahogany stain I had.  Anywho, I let that dry overnight, then proceeded to clean my house some more and even visit the in-laws. 

While the stain dried, I went ahead and got a silhouette of a horse enlarged at my local Staples for $1.99.  I took this enlarged copy and glued it onto the reverse side of some contact paper.  *Remember to reverse your image.  I cut the outline of the horse from leftover contact paper; it’s cheaper than using my Silhouette vinyl. 

I stuck this vinyl cut-out onto the stained board.  *Make sure the edges are well adhered to the board otherwise your paint might seep under the edges. 

My next step was to paint sloppily over-wait that’s just me, over the silhouette with a brush.  The more visible your brush strokes are, the better!  I used leftover trim paint because it was FREE! 

Peel off the contact paper and you should have something like this. (God willing!)

This didn’t take that long to dry; only about three hours.  (I cleaned my house.)  My last step was distressing it.  I did this by calling it names such as buffoon and ninny.  (I kid!)  I just took some sandpaper; 80 grit to be precise.  I used 80 grit only because it was handy, but I recommend a finer grit. 

I had to sand straight edges across my piece to give the appearance of separate boards.  Then I sanded the edges and some choice spots here and there.  Finally, I gave it a light onceover for an overall aged look.  (I think someone’s been doing that to my face while I sleep.) 

Ah-hem, moving on, here’s my final product.  I’m as happy as a pig in poop!  Lately, I’m REALLY appreciating the crap out of Pottery Barn and their creative genius!  Oh and by the way my cost was $1.99 not $199!  How fab is that?! 

Here's the Pottery Barn version.  Isn't it gorg!!!!

The photo looks darker than it actually is.  I love you I really do-ooh!

Nydia 8)

This post is linked up here:

http://www.thegypsyscorner.com/2011/02/115th-three-or-more-tuesday-simple.html