I lined up the wooden letters on a piece of scrap wood I had.
First I sanded down the board, nice and smooth with my handy dandy Ryobi sander.
I unrolled the wallpaper, face down on the work surface and placed the board down on top of it.
Then I used a box cutter to trim the excess wallpaper.
I flipped the board back over and applied some Mod Podge to about 7 or 8 inches of the wood then pressed the paper to the Mod Podge.
I repeated this until the wallpaper was completely in place and smoothed it all down with my hand.
I let the board dry for a couple of hours just to be safe, then began painting the paper using Americana Traditional Burnt Umber.
After painting, I took a large coarse brush and dry-brushed off the excess paint. I set the board aside to dry while I started on the letters.
To achieve the bronze look of the letters, I mixed Dazzling Metallics (Splendid Gold) with the Burnt Umber I used on the sign and added in some staining / antiquing medium. I used a jar to mix them since I knew I would need quite a bit to cover all the letters.
First I used a small piece of sandpaper to smooth the edges of all the letters. You’d be surprised at how many splinters they have!
I painted each letter with a coat of this mixture then set them aside to dry.
Next I mixed some burnt umber with some black and antiquing gel. Using a light dry brushing technique, I swept a large brush over certain areas of the board that I felt needed more depth.
After it dried I flipped it over and trimmed off as much of the excess as possible.
I wanted about 1/4″ of the board to show all around the edge, so I trimmed back what I could with a box cutter. You can see that some of the paper would not come off.
That’s where the sander comes in handy. I just sanded all the edges until I got the look I wanted.
To finish off the board, I flipped it over and nailed a thick piece of twine to the back. I covered the nails with a square of felt using Gorilla Glue’s super glue.
I liked the way the letters looked, but they still needed something. So I mixed 1 part black, 2 parts burnt umber and some glazing medium.
The final steps were to use super glue to attach the letters to the sign board and once those were dry, add a couple coats of clear acrylic matte sealer. All done and ready to hang!