I caved...

I admit it. I caved. I gave in to the house number craze.

I kept seeing it every where. Porches. Front doors. Blogs. Pillows. Pots. Crocks. Rocks. Curbs. Signs. Old windows. It was all so overwhelming that I couldn't take it anymore and just had to do it myself.

So that was my "big" project on this last trip to Robin's Nest.

I say "big" because let me tell you what a joy it was to cut my own stencils...and just how long that took. Nevermind, i'd rather stick a perfectly polished silver plated butter knife in my eye than relive that process.

Feel free to tell me that I should have just bought a Cricut.

Alas...I chose my fonts and printed what I wanted on a couple of transparencies with my trusty old laser printer. Then I taped those to a piece of corrugated cardboard and painstakingly cut them by hand with a craft knife that could stand to be the recipient of a new blade. Did I mention it took like 3 days? Thank you fancy mixture of fonts...

I picked up this vintage milk can at a local Goodwill for $13.99. It's not perfect by any means. It has some dings and dents (don't we all) and it had been painted several times. When I rescued it, it was a lovely shade of baby blue, speckled with rust and chips of missing paint.

 

So I gave it a quick once over with a sanding sponge, then hosed it off and let it dry before giving it a less than stellar coat of primer (looks better already).

 Mr. Paisley wasn't thrilled that I primed it on the deck railing (note the overspray). That's called character honey and it's my cabin, i'll do with it as I please (he keeps saying "I bought you a cabin" whenever he doesn't get me a gift for something - like say our 10th wedding anniversary that was November 24...).

So once the primer was dry I whipped out my new love...flat black Valspar spray paint and went to town. Once that was dry (yep, forgot to take a photo) I taped my lovingly hand cut stencils to the can with painters tape. It didn't stick very well. I made due...as it was what I had on hand there. 

Here are my stencils...after the fact. Yep - once again I forgot to take a picture while "in process". 

I had packed cream acrylic paint and a few sponge brushes of various sizes knowing I was going to do this project. I ended up using a LARGE sponge brush for the numbers and a regular 1" for the rest. I put as little paint on the brush as possible and basically stippled to try to keep it from bleeding under the stencil that was precariously taped to the can. That actually worked pretty well AND gave it a bonus worn look. Perfect.

So after much adieu and several coats of stippling, plus a quickie "clean up" of some edges with my handy black Sharpie (followed by a coat or 10 of crystal clear...which further enhanced the worn look as I watched the acrylic paint disappear as the drops of clear hit it)...I present my house number milk can for your viewing pleasure.

Oooooooh.....Ahhhhhh....Seriously...how much BETTER does that can look in flat black?!

 And here it sits...mostly because that's where Mr. Paisley set it when he hauled the wheat straw bales down to the basement.

I'm still kind of questioning my font choice for the house numbers. It's one font. One size. It looks like I couldn't line up my stencils...alas, it was a 1 piece stencil...tis how it comes out printed in this particular font.

Joining some parties up in here!