Distressed Yet Sparkly: *Choose Joy* Pallet Wood Art for Teacher’s Gifts

I sure do feel a lot of love for my kids’ teachers and school staff this week, don’t you? We’ve talked to our kids about the Sandy Hook Tragedy and tried to help them understand what we can (not much) about the situation there. When I asked the kids what they thought their teachers would do in a similar situation at their school, they had complete confidence that their teachers would not only protect them from danger, but most likely would tackle the shooter and take him down!! This put a smile on my face, because I know my kids feel safe and loved at school.

…Gosh.

Don’t let me digress into the sadness that we’ve felt here for the victim’s families… It’s pretty deep as I know yours is.

Teachers—> Christmas—> Gifts—> Let’s talk about my latest project.

My Christmas Budget is decidedly small this year, so I decided that instead of buying some candles, lotions, trips to Hawaii, or Starbucks gift cards for my kids’ teachers I would instead make them something out of my happy wood.

Remember the wood? It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

I whipped up some wood canvases last Wednesday for two friends from church that moved this past weekend. I was supposedly going to move at the same time as they. Ha ha! Nevermind! I’ll stay!  I was very glad to not be shipping out along with them and quite enjoyed myself at their going-away luncheon! So glad that in the 45 minutes I had before the luncheon I made them some signs.

Do you like? We all signed the back with love notes because we love them and that’s what lovers do.

Here are the super detailed, intense instructions on how I did it:

Chop Chop with the compound miter saw,Drill Drill with the Kreg, Screw Screw with the Kreg Driver and Kreg screws, then Sand Sand, a lightning quick Paint Paint (with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint that dried super fast so that I could…), Distress Distress with a sanding block, then Paint Paint on the word “Love.” I even whipped out my hair dryer to quick dry the “love” so that I could race off to the luncheon.

When I got home that night I decided that my kid’s teachers might like a similar sign for themselves. Since working with wood and paint give me joy, and these teachers give my kids joy, I decided that the theme would be “Choose Joy.” Well, that’s not actually why I chose “Choose Joy.” I just think that those two words together are very powerful.

I’m not awesome at taking step-by-step pictures of these boards, because it’s just so easy and I think that if you wanted to make your own, you should just organically come up with your design and painting process yourself. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Because, you see, I have a fundamental problem– I can’t do something the exact same way that somebody else has done it. It’s a disease. I have to change it. I figure that if I don’t give you detailed instructions, you can do the project too but not feel like you are copying. You can be your own genius!

Anyhow, I painted the boards white first (roughly, leaving a lot of wood showing through), cut out a star on brown paper then simply layed it where I wanted it on the board. Next I painted blue over the white paint. I held the paper star in place with my fingers. Didn’t even tack it down. After that I drew “choose joy” lightly with a pencil, then went over it with the red paint from my dining room :-) When it had all dried, I distressed it with a sanding block, then decided it needed a little somethin’ somethin’… sparkles.

I painted over the words with a sparkle paint. It’s clear.

Word to your mother: Perfect isn’t ever a requirement for me when doing a project. If it were, I’d never even start. M’kay? So my words aren’t perfect?? Guess what, they weren’t made by a computer. They were made by Angie. Imperfect is only fitting :-)

These signs are distressed and sparkly too. Isn’t that just life? Hopefully? Isn’t that the holidays? Stressful a bit, but sparkly too?

I think these signs are great for the holidays AND beyond. I’d keep it up all year if I had one. Gee I wish I had one. Why didn’t I make FOUR?!!! {aye!}

Choose Joy, Guys, Okay? :-)

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