When I was given the theme for this month’s dose of DIY I will admit that I wasn’t too enthusiastic.
Not because I don’t love Valentine’s day, I do. I just didn’t feel all pink and red. At heart I’m not one of those that loves to decorate WAY before the upcoming holiday. Yet in the blog world, you must decorate early enough for others to glean from your awesome ideas, right?!
Haha!
I’m not so sure about awesome, but I was pretty happy when I went out to my garage for inspiration to find something that I might make into a somewhat decent Valentine decoration and spied this picket fence post.
I had painted it white ions ago and wrote some words on it to turn it into a laundry room sign, which had been very un-inspiring. Hence it was still in my garage for grabs. 😉
First I trimmed it down a bit. I’m terrible about measurements when I’m making something. I just kinda cut where I thought was good, I’d say it was about a foot I trimmed off.
Next I took some boards from another failed project that were already stained in dark walnut and painted over in white. I angled them with the setting on the saw all the way over to 45 degrees.
For the underside bare wood, I enlisted my ever willing little helper to stain while I sanded and painted over already stained but unpainted areas. She loves doing projects with me, and works for a fair price of just a mug of cocoa. 😉
I LOVE that she likes to do these things with me!!
This leads me into a quick tip I thought I would share.
(I apologize up front for the blurry pics!)
After years and years of painting with oil bases and stains, I found a great formula for hand washing.
First, rinse hands
Second, apply one pump of liquid soap and a squirt of Oops! or paint thinner. I keep Oops under my kitchen sink since I frequently do projects like this.
Wash hands as normal, rubbing all areas where paint or stain is.
Rinse and dry.
Voi la!
Clean hands and arms.
Yeah.
Nice tip, eh?
Now back to the tutorial, huh!
Oh, well, silly me. This is the part where I forgot to take anymore pictures. I tend to do that when I’m into a project, but the basic idea is to apply a triangle to the tip and the angled wood for the fletchings.
You’ll end up with something that looks like this:
I sanded the whole thing over to expose the wood of the cedar fencing and the stain of the tip and fletchings.
I have to admit, I love how it turned out!
I found this cute little cupie statue at the antique store.
Too sweet to pass up.
Pairing up with significance the number 2 {me and my sweetie 😉 } and the number 14, for what?
Yep, Valentine’s day.
A green hydrangea with a touch of pink to add a little color.
Then I added some conversation hearts I found left on the floor from my sweet kiddos.
That’s about as pink and purple I’m getting, I’m afraid.
There’s a lot of shadowing on the living room mantel these days. The sun is just not peaking out anytime soon.
Just gray and rainy.
The perfect kind of day for a project like this, huh?!
So I’m glad that I had to think about what to do for Valentine’s day, because the truth is, if I hadn’t…
my mantel would still be bare and lonely.
And this poor destined to be created arrow would not exist.
I know,
I have a lot to contribute here in the blogosphere!
LOL!
Now go to check out my awesome friends creations. If they don’t get you into the Valentine groove, I don’t know what would!
Just click on the pictures below to see their beautiful posts.
Until next time,
Toodles!
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Shelstring 
Michele this is great! I love it so much! Arrows are such a great trend and they are perfect for Valentines. And since it's white you can use it all year long if you want!
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Very cute!!!!
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