DIY gone awry

For over a year, I've had some perfectly patina'd picket fence slats in the garage.  I was going to make shabby chic type signs with them, got unmotivated and there they sat.  I was getting the feeling the Mr was going to chuck them if I didn't do something with them and with a self imposed Christmas decorating deadline looming, I decided to hop into an idea I had last year.  Funnily enough, this idea failed last year too as a pencil tracing technique on a stained piece of wood didn't work and I said screw it.  I was determined to make it work this time!

I took the pickets and arranged every other board facing the same way so it didn't look like I ripped a fence out of someone's yard and ran.

I had scrap board that I cut to screw into the back of each slat.

But before that, I had to see if our shortest screws would work with the scrap wood and slats...

As you can see, that would've poked through so I had the Mr pick up 3/4" screws instead of the 1" ones we had on hand.

I installed another scrap piece in the back and screwed in a D ring that holds 60 lbs on the back.

I sealed the back with clear primer in case there were any buggers that tried to take up residence in there.

Since I don't have one of those fancy pants Cricut (affiliate link) thingys, I had to go old school and print out my saying and then use an exacto knife to cut it out.

I used a pencil to trace it onto the boards and got to painting.

After I was done with my first coat, I saw it...

Did you catch it?

Tannenbaum is misspelled.

BALLS!

This project is doomed.

I refused to let it get to me.  I painted a few coats of Pure White Annie Sloan paint over it after I sanded it down and put a light coat over the other slats to try to save the natural distressing.

I won't lie...I died a little inside losing all of that beautiful natural patina.

I reprinted and after checking the spelling 60x, repeated the process.

I put a coat of wax on it to seal everything in and keep the paint from chipping off.

Now it's hanging up on the wall to greet everyone as they come in!

The lesson, be persistent even when the crafting Gods are pissing in your Cheerios!

Have you ever bombed a DIY project?  Were you able to save it or did you scrap it?

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