Stall Signs

I really enjoy woodworking. Not that I have much talent in cutting wood, but I love painting on it and I love the textures and feel that wood provides. I use a lot of wood accents in my home (you will see more of that as the blog develops). For a short period of time in spring, I was unemployed and therefore had a lot of spare time to putz around the house and revive my creative juices. It was then that I made my horse trainer and friend a barn sign for her barn and business.

Using an old piece of lumber my Boyfriend brought home for me (fortunately, he works at a lumber yard so I get most of my wood pieces for free) with the straps already attached, I crafted this hand painted sign for my trainer. I simply slathered some old house paint onto the old weathered board, stenciled the type and image onto it, and voila! Finished. She loved it and it is hanging on her barn now.

She wanted me to take this wood sign painting one step further and create for her Stall Signs to be displayed when the group attends horse shows. She gave me a list of the horse's names (including a sign for my own horse) and I set to work. I measured the boards she gave me and got the Boyfriend to oblige by cutting them to size. Then the painting went into effect. I underestimated the amount of time this project would take, but the signs were finished by the horse show Labor Day weekend. I did not get a photo of the signs proudly hanging on the stalls, unfortunately, but many compliments were received.

Justa Cool Milo is my horse's. 

The stall signs were painstaking in their labor required. I stenciled the type onto the plain board, then painted the black boarder around them all. After dry, I then hand painted all of the lettering with tan crafting paint. Many needed two or three coats of black or tan for me to be satisfied. Once all the signs were painted, I got the Boyfriend to again assist by drilling two holes into each so I could weave the twine hangings through them. No set size was measured for the twine so they all have a little individual flavor of their own when hanging.

You'll see I also got a little creative with the first two signs I made, using wood letter cut-outs for Joe's and painted stars for Cascade Captive (or Rhett Butler's as is his "barn name"). I had plans to give some individual character to each, but as I progressed through them all the time and labor needed for each one just drained me of the extra efforts. Nonetheless, my trainer was very pleased with them, as were some of the horse's owners who saw their horse's show stall sign.

My trainer has now "commissioned" for me to make her a few more stalls signs and another barn sign. I will blog about those I'm sure as I tackle them.