Baby Name Board

I'm not an artist. I think there is a real difference between someone who can craft, and create things, and an artist. Being an artist takes some real talent. So when I saw this post over at Little Blue Boo I put it in my "Dream" folder. Ashley is a true artist! I absolutely love the way the layering on her pieces looks. She has made a bunch of these, and they are all different, unique, and just perfect!  You can see some of her other ones by clicking here, here, and here. 

So, a friend of mine was having a baby shower and I thought I would just attempt to create something like this. I kept saying to myself that if I messed up it was OK. I could just sand it down and use it for another project, right? Right. So, with Ashley's projects as inspiration I started working on my piece for Miss Kallie Joann. I used different elements from her pieces that I absolutely loved. I started with a wood plaque and spray painted it white. I added some vinyl letters that I cut using my Silhouette. I spray painted the whole thing with Valspar's Tulip Pink and peeled off the letters when it was dry.

I then painted each letter with a fine tip brush. I used all acrylic paints.

 I used Ashley's advice and bought a medium point and fine point black paint pen. I outlined everything with the medium point paint pen.

 I then added different elements to each letter. For the stitching, I used a fine point black paint pen.

 I used a stencil in two of the corners. I outlined them with a pencil, and then filled them in with the paint pen.

 For the centers of my flowers I added stitching to my button holes and hot glued the buttons on.

 To add more dimension, I used a paint brush that the tip had come off of and added dots to different parts of the letters.

 I free handed the little saying with my fine point paint pen.

 I love how it turned out. I think for my first one, it worked out pretty well.

 Most importantly, Kallie's Mommy loved it!!