Faux Weathered Beach Sign

Since I did not make the "cut" for the next round of One Month To Win It (Sadness) . . . I did not get to enter this project.  The next round theme was 'beach' and I am so NOT a 'beachy' person so this was a real challenge for me but this is what I came up with! 

I started out with a package of 18" garden stakes from Home Depot ($4.99) and a bag of sea shells from the thrift store ($2.00).  I can't hammer a nail to save my life so I just laid out the stakes and attached the two support sticks using wood glue and that worked perfectly. 

To give the wood that "aged", look I filled a container with apple cider vinegar and threw in a few pieces of steel wool.  I let the wool soak for about an hour (you're supposed to let it set 24 hours but being lazy and impatient I didn't) and then began rubbing the pads over the wood.  

After about two hours, this is what it looked like!  The wood continued to 'age' even as the days went on and you'll see that the final product really DOES look like drift wood!

Using stencils and white acrylic paint, I added this Bible verse from Psalm 139.  Now you can probably see I made a few mistakes in the "were I to" section that show up in the photos but in person, you can't see them.  To correct them, I just sanded them out and rubbed a little bit of watered down wood stain to cover them.  I think the flash just highlights them in the pictures.

Using my favorite E6000 glue, I added the seashells and some pieces of wood mulch.

The large gray shell already had a row of naturally made holes so I threaded some twine through them and wrapped it around the upper support so this piece hangs freely. The final step was to give the entire piece a few heavy coats of polyurethane to protect the wood from the elements and rotting!

Here is the finished project out by my front porch.  

See how old and weathered it looks now?