BARN WOOD BUNNY FOR THE PORCH

Today's post is once again, a collaboration between hubby and myself.  We still have a little of the barn wood we sourced last summer and I needed three bunnies, one for me and two for gifts for the DIL's.

The fist thing I did was to get a piece of the barn wood (it is 2" thick). He was a little too big for an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper so I think you can see where I taped two pieces of paper together to have the width needed for the pattern. Bunny is approximately 9 x 9 x2. Note the black Sharpie ink on the pattern as it was just laid on the wood and drawn around with a dark Sharpie and cut out using a scroll saw.

Here's bunny! The barn wood has all of it's natural age marks, cracks, dents, etc. bunny could stand alone but at the least a paint treatment will need to be done to the newly exposed wood cut from the saw.

I painted him a pale yellow and using a brown Slick Writer (Sharpie would be OK too) I outlined him and gave him an eye - does not matter how this looks as another coat of paint and lots of sanding ahead - I just wanted to see if the lines gave him some character.

Hubby added the chain so we could hang on the black arrow and make sure the scale was correct.  I then went to my little Annie Sloan paint collection and found this yummy Lady's Slipper blue.  I am not a blue person but I think this color is just luscious and I love it - love all her colors and the names too. I know it is expensive but I have tried a couple of the wannabes and hers is just the best as far as I am concerned.  I am almost out of my beautiful red Emperor's Silk - only one Annie Sloan seller in Idaho and it is hundreds of miles from me.  I called that store and 4oz jars are $11.95 plus shipping.  I tend to like the small jars to keep around for projects but if you are doing a piece of furniture, etc. you would want to get the quarts. I looked on Ebay and found an 8oz jar of the Emperor's Silk for $24.49, no tax, free ship, priority shipping and it will be here this week. For small projects the smaller amounts are great and you don't have to worry about it drying up and going bad.  I use every last drop.

Lots and lots of sanding - going to the garage and using hubby's little hand electric sander for the other two! Then a light coat of Annie Sloan's dark soft wax, let it dry and then rub, rub, rub. If you don't have any wax you could lightly (just some random light brush strokes using only the end of the brush, sort of like a dry brush treatment) poly stain and then give it a light sand after it dries. Another treatment would be to paint him white, let it dry and then do a coat of watered down pink, let it dry, then watered down yellow, let it dry and then sand and do the poly stain treatment.

This piece of wood happened to  have a nail hole in a good position for the eye so I just enhanced it a little and lightly added the little break in the ears and around the feet.  My kind of craft - no rules, it's your bunny do what you want!!

I may, at some future time give bunny another treatment using pink as he sort of fades into the green color of the house but for this year bunny is at home.

Resource

Bunny pattern, feel free to copy and paste for your own use and if you want it bigger take it to a copy shop and have it enlarged.
Chain, hardware stores and online
Annie Sloan paint and wax, online sellers, Ebay, speciality shops.
Brown Sharpie, craft stores
Barn wood, check newspaper, Craig's list and if you have an architectural salvage place in your area check with them.

Thank you for stopping by!