Chevron Fever- my newest obsession and latest crafting experience.

Yes, I admit I have CHEVRON FEVER!!!!  Since the beginning of 2013, I have noticed that the popular zig-zag print called Chevron has made a great influence on clothing and decor that consumers can buy.  I love ANYTHING chevron.  I have a few dresses and this year my classroom will be decked out in the chevron print.  I have a friend that has chevron fever too and she made the statement the other day, "I don't know why I love chevron so much, it's just a zig-zag!!"  I 100% agree.  It is just a zig-zag.  I have come to the conclusion that I LOVE chevron because it can go with many things.  It can give a plain dress some SPUNK and turn a pillow into something chic and up to date.

With that being said, I have been wanting to make something that has a chevron print on it.  Being the pinterest lover I am, I have been browsing for ideas that used the chevron print and would be something that I could use.  I decided to make something for Josh, but at first it didn't have anything to do with chevron.  He recently moved into his own apartment and I wanted to make a craft with his last name on it to make his new place feel like a home.

I decided to use inspiration from here.  I love anything with a name, initial or monogram, and I thought this would be an unique way to display his last name.  First, I bought five dollar store frames.  I decided that I wanted to stain the piece of wood instead of painting it.  I bought brown frames that would match the stain, so I wouldn't have to paint.  After I bought the frames, I went to Home Depot and bought a 6ft by 10in slab of wood.  I should have bought smaller frames (3X5 instead of 4X6) because I had to buy a piece that was 10 inches wide, and there was only one piece the choose from and it happened to be 6ft... about 3.5 feet to big.  I lined up the picture frames and had an employee cut it.  I recommend taking the picture frames with you when buying wood, that way you know exactly how much wood you need to have cut off.  The wood costed me a little more that $11.  The plus side is I used the extra wood for another project that I will talk about in a few.

Once we bought the wood, I got some wood stain from my dad that he had in his garage.  I was lucky he had a little bit left because wood stain can be expensive, and when you are only using a small amount, you don't need a full can.  First, Josh stirred up the stain and used an old shirt to spread the stain.  It took a few hours because we had to do both sides.  He also used a finisher on it and coated that twice.  Staining the wood was the most time consuming, but it gave a plain piece of wood that WOW factor.  The next day I printed out some letters in black and white using flickr.  Josh picked out baseball team letters, which I thought was pretty neat.  Once I had them printed and cut, I placed them in the frames.

I then measured the distance for each frame, hot glued them on the the board and WALAHHH!  

We now have a personalized sign that cost less than $20 bucks!

So moving along... with only two days left of summer I knew I had to do something with the extra piece of wood I had left over from the first project.  I knew if I didn't it would be sitting in my basement probably for the next year.  I kept thinking to myself, "what in the world am I going to do with a slab of board?! I already did one project and I don't have any use for it!"  After relaying my concerns to Josh he said, "Paint chevron on it and glue letters that spell something."  So I decided to paint chevron stripes and spell out the work "BIKE" for his bike room.  Yes, he has a bike room in his new apartment.  He basically turned his dining room into a bike room... which in his case totally fits his needs.  So there was the idea... CHEVRON sign.

I packed up my little piece of wood and headed to Raleigh.  I mentioned having a pinterest night with my BFF Val and decided to make my sign with her.  She made a cute little earring holder out of a picture frame and ribbon.  Val and her husband were a FABULOUS help.  This project nearly took three+ hours, but it was completely worth it in the end.  We went to Michael's and I picked up the letters BIKE.  They costed around $12, and I used a teacher discount of 15%, which made it around $10.  We then went to Walmart and bought black, white and grey spray paint that cost a total of about $3.  This was bad idea because I ended up only using the grey because the white didn't cover very well.  I ended up using white and black craft paint that Valerie had.  I also used painters tape to make the chevron stripes.

Here is what I started with :)

I then painted the board and letters with craft paint.  I used white for the board and black for the letters.

 After we let the paint dry, (I did both sides and the edges) I started to tape the edges.  

To get the best results I started at one corner and went to the opposite.  I then did the same thing until I had the picnic table effect.  This took a while, but I think it is a very efficient technique.

After the tape was secure, Daniel (bless his little heart) cut the excess tape, so we would have zig-zags.  This took FOREVER, but it turned out much better than measuring out each zig-zap separately.  

This is what it looked like with the tape cut.  Daniel did fabulous!

Let the spray painting begin.  The paint cost $.97.  It did it's job!  We sprayed the front and the sides!

Now for my most favorite part!  Taking off the tape.  We carefully took all the tape off. 

Here is the finished product without the BIKE letters!  I was so proud of this!

The finished products!!  Yes, the K does look like a H... but I liked the style of the letters so much I made it work!! I LOVE Valerie's purple earring holder!  

So there you go!  A little crafting insight!  I cannot wait for my next crafting adventure!  

Anyone have a suggestion?  I love working with wood!

P.S. All pictures were taken by the marvelous Val!!  Thanks Valerie!  You da best!