Painted House Sign

For my parents for Christmas, I finally got round to making a sign for our house!

When we first moved here four years ago we named the house 'Manderley' from the classic book Rebecca. [Spoilers] Yes, in the book Manderley burns down. It wasn't my decision to call our house after that! But it's still a very pretty name.

I wanted a sort of rustic aesthetic. I began with a bare plank of wood that I acquired when some builders were doing some work around the place. The guy was nice enough to sand it down for me which created a great smooth surface to work on.

I kept reading on the internet that it is important to pre-treat the wood, but I skipped this step. If you want to do this professionally, then I suggest you research elsewhere for pretreatments. I used white acrylic paint to cover the surface with two coats and then mixed the white with blue to create a pale vintage colour for the lettering. After the lettering dried I went over the letters with a smaller brush to fix up any wobbly lines.

 For the lettering I used Script MT Bold font on a word document, then printed it out and cut it out to create a stencil. I penciled in the lettering and then painted over.

I also downloaded a leafy design and used the same method for painting around the edges.

There's still some post-treatments to do to protect it from the elements as it will be sitting outside for years to come, so I will try to remember to take pictures when it is up on our house!

-AlbusOwner

Makeover

My blog has just gone through its own makeover! Gone are the gothic black backgrounds and painful-to-read white writing. Gone are the thin columns and small-size photographs!

Speaking of photographs, my fabulous mother has just invested into a top of the range camera - I cannot comment on its type as I must confess I know little about cameras! But I'm expecting to learn. This is my new baby - too bad I have to share it!

Meanwhile, some further vintage hair persuits:

Preparing the night before...

 The next day:

Made up:

 

Lots of pins!

For further information on these pin-curls, check out Vixen Vintage's post.

I have another style I tried a while ago, unfortunately the photos were taken on my old camera. This is a more work-style hairdo:

Vintage Hairstyles

So I have had incredible fun in the last week getting into the mood of VINTAGE. I don't know where it came from, but all of a sudden I am obsessed with anything and everything vintage!

I watched numerous youtube tutorials until I managed to find one that showed me how to do this:

I am absolutely in love with this style. For further information on how to achieve this, go to this youtube video.

Meanwhile, today I have reverted back to a vintage hairstyle I have not tried in a while:

RAG CURLING!

For more detail, see Vixen Vintage

I slept on it (quite an uncomfortable experience) and this is how it turned out this morning when untied:

 

Far better results than the previous two times I have attempted this! Then again, I have never slept in it. It is important for it to completely dry (even after a night it was still a little damp).

My final look: