Ink Stains: Landscaping Timbers to 4th of July Centerpiece!

Hey everyone...

I hope you're all having a great day....staying out of the heat/dust/storms or whatever other weather might be plaguing you at this time. I had planned on posting this earlier BUT for the first time in months we had a real for sure T-storm! Our area of Indiana has been classified an extreme drought...the weather guy said this rain came too hard/fast to change much but at least it washed the layer of dust off of everything.

If you've visited much at all you know how much I love to take stuff destine for the dust bin and turn it into something useful again. Well, today I have a project that I made using scraps of landscaping timbers that I nicked from my Dad's scrap bin. He usually gives it to my grandma to use as kindling for her wood stove BUT I was able to go through it and pick out some pieces I wanted to use for ... something ;)

4th of July

Landscape Timber

Centerpiece!

Supplies:

Landscape Timbers or similar in 3 different lengths
Vintage Sheet Music or other ephemera
Patriotic Collage Images (Altered Pages - AP563 Americana)
Cardboard
Acrylic Paint
Glass Glitter
Raffia
Brown Ink
Ink Blending Tool

Instructions:

1. Sand off any rough splinters and wipe away any loose dirt/debris.

2. Paint the tops of your pieces white and the bottoms black.

3. Mark off the approx. size of paper you will need to cover your timbers. You could of course get real precise ~ measuring and cutting but I am simply going to make a pencil mark and tear off the excess. Due to the size of my timbers I need 2 pieces to cover each.

4. Glue the sheet music to the timber smoothing down as you go. Once you've covered each of the 3 timbers set them aside to dry.

5. Now free hand a few stars onto the chipboard. You'll notice mine again aren't perfect...they have more of a folk art feel to them. Some sides are longer than another and a bit wonky but that's what I wanted. Cut each star from the cardboard.

6. Paint the large star red, medium white and small blue. (this will come in handy in the next step.).

7. Once the paint has dried, coat each star with a bit of glue and sprinkle on the matching color of glass glitter. Since you painted the stars to match you don't have to worry if it's not completely covered. The paint below will cover any light spots! This saves lots of time and glitter ;) Set them aside to dry.

8. While the stars are drying, add a vintage feel to your timbers by applying a bit of brown ink.

9. Drill a small hole in the top center of each timber. I only drilled down like 1/2".

10. Poke one or more pieces of metallic pipe cleaners down in each hole and bend a little curl on the top. *NOTE - If needed you can glue your pipe cleaners in the hole...mine seemed to stay in place w/o the glue.

11. Trim, ink and mat desired patriotic images.