We’re doing something a little different this post – a guest post!

My sister and her fiance are moving so that he can attend dental school. [excuse me while I go cry] She’s been busy buying and crafting away to fill their new apartment. We come from a family of crafty ladies.

She recently made this amazing hand-painted, antler silhouette, wall pallet art to hang above their bed. Check out how she did it below!

Take it away, Kaitlyn!

When decorating, you typically have an idea in your head of what you want the space to look like. It’s frustrating when you can’t find the perfect piece of art or furniture to make that vision a reality. In this case, I decided to take matters into my own hands and make it myself! Here’s how you can too – and you can customize it with any silhouette of your choosing – you could do your initials, last name, child’s silhouette – the options are endless!

The piece I was pulling inspiration from was about $300 at Pier One, this one cost us about $75 total.

1. Map out about how big you want your finished art to be so that you know how many boards to buy. I ended up purchasing 4 of these boards from Michael’s that have 5 planks each. They come in all different sizes.
   
2. To save money – gather up any extra or left over paints / stains you have lying around and use those. Or determine your color palate and go buy paints / stains.
3. Using those colors map out your design so that you don’t end up with the same colors next to each other, etc. I also included the painting technique I wanted to use and how big each section would be.
   
   

   
4. Choose a color to start with and paint all the sections of that color at one time. It’s easiest if you tape off the boards and sections you’re painting with painters tape to keep the lines crisp and clean. Use different brushes, sponges and painting techniques to give the art character and texture! Also, purchase some fun stain colors to stain your boards a darker color to give the illusion of different types of wood. We also taped the boards off into two sections at all different levels to give the appearance that some boards were split into 2. This really gives it the pallet / hardwood feel.
   
   

   

   

   

5. Arrange your sections into the order to create your desired pattern. Attach the brackets to the back to connect them all together creating one piece. Using a 4 hole bracket and 4 screws, place 2 screws in each board section to connect the two. Continue until all are connected.
   
   

   

    

6. Measure the boards to determine what size stencil you need. Find a picture of the silhouette you are wanting and download it onto a flash drive. Bring it to Office Max and tell them what size you need the image. They will be able to print the large image for you, that will become your stencil. Ours cost only $7.00.
7. Cut the inside [black portion] out to reveal your homemade stencil. Place this on your board and paint the inside to reveal your silhouette. Do this step very carefully and use little paint so that your paint doesn’t bleed under your stencil.
   
   You now have your completed artwork that you can proudly display because it’s one of a kind and you did it yourself.