How to make a giant number - the hard way

I wanted to make a cool number for SNS's number theme this weekend. So when I came across the perfect plywood scrap at one of my work locations, ideas danced around in my head on what I'd whip up!

 I started by freehand sketching what I had in mind. Should I cut a decal to stencil it on?!? Nah... I'll just wing it this time. Hmmm... which style...

I chose the bad side of the wood in case I left the finish woodsy. The other side was like brand new and we can't have that! :)

The image was sketched on with chalk and tweaked to my heart's content. It was even easy to wipe off wet and start over in some places.

 Cut it out with the jigsaw... so far so good!

 Huh... not too bad. A little squiggly but I'll just palm sand that all off, no big deal. I kinda liked how it looked hand done anyway, as if ol' Ned the Grocer banged out his own signs in the stock room right before he needed them.

 So thinking about colour, I climbed on FJI Facebook and asked the gang for their advice. Nearly ALL wanted RED. Here's a small sampling of the comments. You gals rock! :)

And this is where things got veeeeery interesting. I envisioned a nice beat up coke red for where this was going. But I didn't have the right red on hand. Drat! I'm fussy about tones so I did it anyway, hoping.... And didn't like it.

And then the circus came to town.

Oh good GRIEF. I kid you not. This is how many times I painted the thing. The middle one? I had given up by that time and Picaso'd it. But it didn't rake in any good reviews from me. No quitting my day job that day.

Paint - I used any latex I had laying around. Craft and house interior. The finished paint is white house ceiling paint. 

 There was actually a reason for me going crazy on it. I later coated it out with white then lifted some paint. (bottom left image) The finish was pretty neat but NOT what I wanted that day. NOW what?!?

And then this little girl beckoned me to listen up. Ahhhh.... now THAT I like! One of my little authentic cow sign labels save the day.

I sanded the edges until they were back to wood, and slapped black on the edges and white on top, using pretty rough cross hatch kind of strokes and built up a texture. Then did a wash of watered down taupe paint. (wipe on, wipe off, nothing technical) The glaze sunk in nicely in all the right rough places.

 MUCH better! Although I knew where I wanted the two hung, I couldn't resist playing just abit.

 This thing is BIG.

 And this is where it ended up taking residence. There was nothing on these walls yesterday. And there may be nothing tomorrow. But for today, I had some fun!

 That cog is not the real deal. Friend Dan created the design and ran it through his router as my name plate for the last workshop event I helped with. Pretty cool, huh?

Numbers numbers everywhere! I think I'm ready for the party now. :)

I rather like all the new action in the stairway... and I can't wait till I get my new junk parcel in the mail and pretty the area up with that. Come on package! :)

Making the number was actually VERY easy and looked neat in quite a few places. And the totally best part was not having to fork out a zillion dollars in order to have one. Give it a go!

p.s. have I told you today how much I love little inspirational cow signs?!?

Related link:

old crate stairway