Knock-Off Party!

Time to link up your Pottery Barn, Ballard Designs, and Restoration Hardware knock-offs.  Guidelines here.

My project this time around is from the current PB spring catalog.  It’s not actually for sale, and is just part of the room styling for the photo, but it immediately caught my eye.

It got my attention because I like old signs, but also because one of the area suburbs (which is really more like a quaint old town than a suburb, and I would consider doing something illegal to be able to live in one of the big old Victorians there) has a hatchery.  It has been in business since 1927 and is now a feed and garden store.  So, I recreated this sign with the local store’s name and address.

I went to the ReStore to find some reclaimed wood, hoping for barn wood, but what I got was a piece of baseboard ($3), which turned out to work very well for this project.  It was stained a reddish/cherry color, and I painted over it with watered-down black acrylic.  When it was dry, I sanded it, and the grain of the wood, which was quite pronounced, showed through with some of the reddish color.

 

 

Next, I printed out my lettering and played around with the layout.  I used Arial font and experimented with the size until it fit the board.

 

 

Then I had to figure out how to transfer the lettering to the board.  Graphite paper wouldn’t work because it didn’t show up on the black, and the wood was too hard to just press the outline with a pencil.  Here’s what I came up with:  I rubbed white chalk across the back of the paper…

 

 

…then I used a stylus I had (from back when I did some brass stencil embossing) to outline the letters.  A pencil would probably work fine, but I found that this glided over the bumpy wood grain more easily.

 

 

That left a good outline on the board.

 

 

The next step was painting.  I knew I didn’t want stark white paint, because I wanted it to look like it had some age, so I mixed up some light gray acrylic.  Using a paintbrush, I painted in the letters.  I was careful as possible about staying in the lines, but didn’t worry too much about perfection or getting full coverage, since I was going to sand it again anyway.

 

 

 

The address was trickier, because the letters were too small for any paintbrush that I had.  I tried several different things, but finally ended up using an old dried out marker to apply the paint.

 

 

When it was all dry, I sanded over it again to distress the lettering.

 

 

I am thrilled with the final product!

 

 

I think a local person might wonder if it really is an old sign from the store.

 

 

Your turn!

Linky rules (for full details see this post):

• your knock-off entry must be made by you
• it must inspired by Pottery Barn, Ballard Designs, or Restoration Hardware
• you must include a picture of the original item from the catalog so we can compare
• it must be a specific comparable item, like my lamp shade, and not just a “this kind of has the PB look to it”
• you must link back to me in your post, preferably using my button code, which you can get in my right side column
• link to your specific party post, and not your general home page
• please be polite and visit several other participants and leave a nice comment

I’m going to leave this open until Sunday night, but will do a highlight post on Friday. 

{I’m also joining Amanda’s Weekend Bloggy Reading.}