The Lasso Welcome Sign

Keeping in theme with lasso ropes from yesterday's post, a wedding gift I made for a friend this last June:

The Lasso Welcome Sign! I wanted to give the newlyweds something special and completely unique. It also had to be something personal and with a little flair of "wedding" to it. They are country bumpkins like myself, so I knew this piece would work in their decor and style. This was a fairly simple project as well, with supplies I already had on hand.

Supplies Needed/Used:

A used lasso rope - spent $5 on rope off craigslist.
Old beat up and weathered wood
Black paint
Rustic wire and embellishments
Hot glue gun
Twine

Create!

The first step was to create the wording for the welcome part of the sign. Because I dont have my own stenciling machine, or even stencils for that matter, I had to create my own letters to use. I actually found an A to Z letters page from this font that I liked online, enlarged to size on my computer screen, then traced it onto a piece of paper. That's right, traced it off of the computer screen.

With my letters on paper, the second step was to transfer them from the paper to the wood by writing over the lines firmly while on the wood. This left an imprint of the lettering in the wood. It was faint, but I could see it and follow the lines.

Now it was time to actually paint the letters. This third step was the most labor intensive of it all, but still only took about an hour or so. I hand painted the letters in a next-to-black acrylic brown paint, then simply, let it dry.

The board looked a little plain to me, so that's when I added the twisted rusty wire (just the faithful ole method of twisting wire around a pencil for the look) and rustic heart embellishments to the wood. I simply hot glued the wire to the back of the board to secure in place. In hindsight, there probably was a much more effective way of attaching it, but all I had on hand was got glue and it seemed to do the trick.

Next was the fifth step; the one that really baffled me. How was I going to attach the wooden board to the lasso rope? With the rope already secured to shape with unseen twine, I just had to find a way to attach the two items together. This is where my handy Boyfriend came into play. He screwed two small holes on the upper part of the wood, at an angle in the back to allow the twine to run through. Clever Boyfriend! Can't even see it from the front!

So this final step was to run the twine through the holes, and secure it to the lasso rope. I then cut another piece of twine and ran it through the lasso ropes in the back and tied it across to create a hanger to hand the welcome sign by. I signed and dated the back of the board, and wrapped it up in festive wedding attire for the big day.

They opened the gift and were floored by it. So I knew just what to make for the next country couple getting married only a few months later....although I did not get a photo of the second design.

Linked up to The Craft-O-Maniac.