North Dakota Wood Art

*This post is linked to That DIY Party

So I know that I have been posting a ton of projects for the porch lately and I am not done yet.  Today I've got another post about the art for the gallery wall. Here is a look at what I have so far:

You might see something new in the middle there and that is today's project.  Awhile ago I bought some wood plaques at Hobby Lobby.  It was one of those times where I had no idea what I was going to do with them but had some strange urge to buy them anyway.  They are cheap (around $3) so it wasn't any big deal.  I am happy to finally have a project that uses one of them.

I happened to see several ideas for art using states and since I had a North Dakota shape in my Silhouette library from this onesie project.  I love my home state and I thought that featuring in a piece of art would be fun. My first step in this project was to make the wood look aged so it would go with the vintage feeling of other items on the porch.

I soaked some steel wool in white distilled vinegar for about half an hour (it might have been more but I lost track of time:) The steel wool will break down a little bit and kind of create a wood stain with the vinegar.

I donned some gloves and applied several coats of the vinegar with the steel wool.

The wood looked like this after sitting over night.

 I used my good old contact paper as a stencil again.  The settings for cutting contact paper with the Silhouette are speed:8, blade:3, and thickness:4.

I then painted inside the stencil with some sample paint that I had.  It is Behr Oyster.

After letting it dry a little bit I pulled the contact paper off.  After it dried fully I applied a coat of matte Mod Podge just to protect the paint.

So that's it.  It was another super easy art project.  If you want to check out my other recent porch projects just click on the pictures below