MORE THAN A DRAWER!

I hope you are all enjoying your Memorial Holiday Weekend. I would like to take a quick second to Thank my friends, family, and any one who has served our country! THANK YOU!   I have always loved the monogrammed wall plaques that you see in magazines like Ballard Designs and Pottery Barn. Last weekend, my favorite Antique and Home Decor store (Merchant Square) was having a store wide sale. I love to rummage through their garden area that holds mostly scrap! They have some pretty amazing stuff. I was actually looking for a large unique piece of wood that I could convert into a monogrammed family wall plaque. Instead I found this amazing drawer. I thought to myself, as I walked back and forth by it a thousand times, that I could use the face of the drawer to make my wall plaque! So I decided to buy it, and I made it!

Can you believe this started from a drawer? I am pretty in love with the way it turned out.  This is how the drawer looked when I found it. I immediately fell in love with the center molding. It was something I have not seen on a drawer before.  Needless to say the drawer was in pretty bad shape. Every time I tried to fix a piece, it would just fall apart. It was quite rotted. Good news with that, is I was easily able to remove the face of the drawer with a rubber mallet. A couple of good whacks on either side is all it took!

Once I had the face of the drawer removed, I removed the hardware and then sprayed it a base color of off white. Over time it had developed an odd pinkish hue. (I know, I know...me and pink furniture!) Once that was dry, I brought it inside and sat it on a soft surface. The back was pretty torn apart from the rotting (and the removal!) The spray paint made it look too new and I wanted it to look more aged. (An aged drawer, sprayed new, made to look old again! Ha Ha) I took a cloth and buffed in some ebony wood stain right over the top of the spray paint. I just rubbed it around until I got the look I wanted.  

Since I was too excited to wait for the wood finish to dry, I used a piece of paper under my hands when adding the monogram so I would not lift any of the finish off or leave my hand prints.  I found a great Calligraphic image of the letter "L" online. I printed it to scale and used tracing paper to trace it to my center piece. I altered it a bit to give it my own style. (You should really never copy anything exactly! It's supposed to be all about inspiration right?!?)

I then painted the monogram a dark gold color. Once that was dry, I rubbed white paint over the entire center piece to lighten it a bit. I then used Martha Stewart Textured Paint to some of the more pronounced areas to give it more depth. I also outlined some of the areas in black and added my established date. You will see that later on! All these layers of paint really helped to give the monogram more texture and intensity.

After that was done. I found a font that I liked on Word. I blew it up to the font that would fit my plaque and printed it out. I cut out the words and traced them onto the plaque with tracing paper.

 I painted my words with a black paint and then went back and highlighted some areas with white paint. I made it a point to paint the words over where I was going to be replacing the hardware. Once I put the hardware back on, I then painted the hidden letters over the hardware. By painting underneath them, I was able to give a more finished appearance.   Once all my words were dry and I was happy with the way the wall plaque looked. I took Matte Mod Podge and covered the entire facade of the wall plaque. This just helps to ensure that the paint stays put with out giving it any gloss.  
When that dried, I flipped over the plaque and adhered felt to the back using rubber cement. I added nail-heads for a more polished look as well as reinforcing the felt. Not only does this help to finish the piece off, but it will also help to protect my wall!

That was it. I am so excited to get this jewel up on the wall! I have to wait for the hubby for that! He doesn't like me to get on ladders when I am pregnant. So sweet, but it pretty much takes all I have to not get on that ladder!   

So what do you think? Anyone can make one of these for your own family, using pretty much what ever scrap material you can find. I would love for you to share if you do!        THIS POST HAS BEEN LINKED TO:

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