Monday, March 31, 2008

Tunisian Wedding


planter
Originally uploaded by misterbonkers
Something neat happened. It turns out that I popped up on a Google search for "table size planter boxes." Laura wrote me to ask if I could create some planter boxes for her Tunisian style wedding in June.

I made this box tonight to test out some stencil ideas. Keep in mind that I don't really go for the colors of the stencil, but it's a start.

As with out first Happening, I used cedar fence boards (very inexpensive.) But, this time I sanded them and even rounded all the edges. They look good in person.

I found a jpg of a Moroccan motif that was interesting. I brought it into Photoshop, traced the outlines and exported the paths to Illustrator. Using my Silhouette Digital Craft Cutter, I created the stencil. (The easy thing is, now that I have the file, I can cut a new stencil at any size in under a minute.)

After staining the box, I used the stencil twice; once with gold and then a second time with a deep orange. I'll be doing some trials to see what looks good, and I think I'll make them more uniformly spaced with cleaner edges.





Here's a look at the stencil itself. I finally got smart and started wearing gloves when I spray. The big advantage here, is that you're able to hold the stencil flat against the object without worry of spraying your fingers. Luckily, I have almost 100 pairs of surgical gloves I picked up at an estate sale years ago. I knew they would come in handy!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike,
If you really want your "box" to be more rustic, hit the corners with a coarse rasp (a big toothed type of file). It will tear the fibers a bit and take a lot of material off. You can also use a 60 or 80 grit sand paper, the roughest type commonly available.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Wow! Those are gonna be great.