Neither Rain, nor snow, nor cheap metal numbers...

The postal service left us a note in our mailbox saying that we needed to mark our mailbox with our house number.  No problem, I understand that.  But a trip to Lowes and Home Depot showed me that the house numbers were A. BORING and B. UNATTRACTIVE.

Yes, I know - it's only a mailbox.  I get that.  But still, I left thinking there had to be something better.  Later that day during a walk with my husband we strolled past a neighbors yard and I notice he was throwing out some old fence posts.  Which got me thinking of a project I wanted to do - making signs with the mileage to both my kids' states.  So I scooped up the pieces he was throwing out.  They were weathered and wonderful!

And I also noticed that they might also work for our house numbers.  So I printed out our address.  Painted the wood with white paint (after cutting it to length).  .  I used transfer paper to copy the address onto the wood  and then using some left over paint from our front door and filled in the address, outlining it in black.  I sanded and distressed that a bit, and waxed over the whole thing.  I used double stick tape to attach it to the mailbox (and this way I can switch it out when I want to do something else for the holidays, etc.)  What do you think?

I can't resist odd and unusual items.  I found this "thing" at an estate sale.  They were basically giving it away.  It was just plywood type wood.  But it had such neat lines.  And it reminded me of something I may have seen in the past - a chick carrier - for baby chicks.

So, of course, I went to my favorite spot for graphics http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ .  So many inspirational graphics at her site that you can't go wrong.  I found a nice selection of graphics there.

I white washed the wood first.  Then printed the mirror image of the graphics on my printer.  I have been reading many tutorials using water to dampen the paper (print side down) and burnishing the image to wood.  But I started thinking about what actually "loosens" ink.   And I decided to try spraying the paper till just dampened with hair spray!  This worked like a dream.  I was so pleased.  Just make sure to let it completely dry before touching it (yep - I did that).  

After the ink had dried, I sanded the edges and mixed some clear wax and mahogany wood stain.   Using an old sock I just wiped on the stain and wax mixture to lightly stain the wood.  Still not sure what this item is, but I love it on my deck!!