This year I've been liking more wood for my projects... So from teacher gifts to friends birthday gifts wood has been the option... Luckily I have lots of scraps of woods, from pine to plywood and who-knows-what kind... I just go to the patio and look for the piece that has a size I can use... (which give you a hint of how pretty and uncluttered a mean, organized is my back patio :D...
Well here are some of the projects...
This one was a Crayola Crayon for the teacher of one of my girls...
So I first cut my piece of wood in 18' x 4', taking a couple of corners out so I can resemble the tip of the crayon... In the back I took just a bit so it was round and nice... Once sanded looks already pencil-like :)
With a pencil a draw the design (that I already had done on paper, of course)...
And I start to apply the paint... Is better if you already know the favorites color of the person, so you can make a most personalized gift.
So here is my personalized wood Crayon, nice right?
As you can see is just a matter of paint here, once you have the shape and you do the design of your preference you can change the look easily...
Now in the back I put these little triangles so it could stand up on the desk... I put the pictures of how-to in the next "pencil".
Here is another one very similar, but look how just changing the colors changes everything... I started with the same shape...
I use a very fine brush to do the letters (one of the girls wanted to participate and I let her write on pencil the name of the teacher and then I retrace it on black paint) and on the eraser area I distress it with a fine sand paper a little as it was a real eraser...
Now for the back support I used the same triangle corners that I took from the beginning to shape the tip of the pencil... and use the same two on each piece... I measure first that they were at the same distance from the borders and some wood glue and a nail in each and that was it...
At the end I use a dark brown shadow/pastel around all the borders of colors to give them a little depth and a coat or two of polyurethane to protect the paint. In the back I paint it with a white wash so the wood wouldn't look so bare, kind of like in the white on the tip of the pencil.
Then from these I got to this other project...
I always think of the person I'm doing the piece , what he/she likes, his/her favorite things, colors etc. and on paper I draw until I'm satisfy with the result...
As you can see in this one Lucas likes marine motives and he is into painting and art even though he's just turning 7 years old...
Camila is turning one and always dress sooo cute and pink that I just came with this design...
Daniela was turning 12, her bedroom was just paint with this exact colors and this was a most for her!
Juan is into super heroes, so for his bedroom I thought of a clock, so this one required the kind of material that is used for background in a piece of furniture... very thin wood-like material and a clock mechanism...
This one was different too... I decided that the name was too short to look good on a big piece of wood, so I came up with the hangers idea... because I had just 3 letters I used 3 hangers and once in the position I thought of this seashells colors shape and gave a little texture on the background color...
Will see what next birthday will bring... :)
Well this is the latest of the painted boards... In this one I found the wooden pegs and because is intended to hold weight, I try something new... I did holes for the screws and then cover it with this caps that I found for kitchen cabinets... And it looks pretty good I think... The caps are very camouflage with the design.
