Crafting in Cowtown: pottery barn

My husband had to ask me while doing this project "What is NOEL?" I said, "Uh....Ummm...it's everywhere at Christmas."

SO I had to look it up to be official- it means 'the Christmas season," or also "a christmas song or carol." So there you go.

I was inspired to make this from this awesome Pottery Barn sign as I was perusing their website for decor ideas:

So I decided to make this for myself. Many reasons, for one, it was about $120 not including shipping. It was metal, so I'm sure shipping was $$$. Also, it is now sold out, so even if I wanted to buy it, I couldn't.

So off I went to JoAnn's (with coupons in hand!) to buy the letters. I had to make a decision about the type of letters. The letters I got at JoAnn's were about two feet high each- so the total hight of the sign is around 4 feet tall. Now the Pottery Barn sign is about 3 to 3.5 feet tall, so it is still pretty substantial. But the 4 foot tall sign won't fit where I originally wanted it on my mantel. They had smaller letters, some that were a foot each, that would fit perfect on the mantel, but they were sans serif, so they didn't look exactly like the PB one.

My grand idea was to use Rustoluem Hammered spray paint. We had some that my husband used to cover our picinic table. We had Hammered Brown, but I had to buy some Hammered Bronze- I'm quite indecisive. I did decide to use the Bronze. But after I saw them and compared it with the picture, they ooked more brownish. So I lightly sprayed over the bronze with the brown for a mottled look. I think it looks pretty good!

The next step in creating my NOEL sign was a bit of a challenge. Assemling the letters. So I tried the trusty glue gun. No go. they just wouldn't stick. So after peeing off dried glue gun glue, and peeling off paint ( I hope it doesn't show!), I found some would glue in the garageNot wood, but painted paper mache-type medium, it was worth a shot. I had to take out the dried glue to get to the good stuff. I had no camps. SO after 15 mintues of holding the letters together, they promptly fell apart! Now what?! So I finally decided to staple the letters together to help the dry. A comedy of errors, I know!

But the next morning, that NOEL sign was very sturdy. Here it is in the office. (Can you tell I need to dust my vent!)

And here it is placed at the very tip top of the mantel. Before other Christmas decorations. I need to get some long, sparkly reed-type things to put in the pots to add height and visual interest. I almost thought about putting the NOEL sign on a shoebox or something to raise it up so you can see the bottom of the letters from the ground.

But you can see it from the landing outside the master bedroom. For now it will be as is. First I almost killed myself getting it up there. Then I had hubby bring in the big ladder so I could dust that upper ledge and sweep out the cobwebs. But it does look pretty cool! the "O" isn't quite as round as the PB sign. Once I get all my decorations up, I'll take a pretty picture of it all.