Before I show you how I made my Driftwood Sailboat, I want to say THANK YOU to my sweet friend Kathy from Creative Home Expressions

Do you remember my post about making this Pottery Barn knock off vase? I mentioned, in my post how I wished I had some Hydrangeas to dry out and put in my new vase. You don’t see them down here in Florida. Maybe it is too hot for them. I just love them.

Kathy e-mailed me and said she would ship me some when hers where in bloom. I received my package yesterday. She did a great job, soaking the papertowels in water and putting them in ziploc bags and shipping them. A few of the stems were drooping but I am drying them out and I am still enjoying them. Aren’t they gorgeous? She has beautiful colors. Thank you Kathy–I LOVE THEM.

Have you seen these driftwood sailboats by White Flower Farmhouse?

Aren’t they ADORABLE?

I just love them. I  We went to the beach (after our anniversary dinner,  a couple of weeks ago) and we walked around for awhile, looking for a large piece of driftwood, but we only found some smaller pieces.

I have the advantage of living minutes from the beach, but we don’t go on a weekly basis and they comb the beaches early in the morning so they are clean. You have to get up really early to find stuff like that. So what is a girl to do?

MAKE HER OWN DRIFTWOOD. No, I didn’t–OH YES I DID

I had a 2 x 4 in the garage (that I had picked up at one of the Big Box hardware stores in the discarded pile.  I got it for 50 cents.)

Then I took the Sabre Saw and starting cutting chunks out of  EVERY side and the ends.

I wanted the edges to be more rounded and chunky.

Then I picked up all the scraps I had cut off and glued them to the top, with my Gorilla Wood Glue.

I took some trim I had and broke the trim over my leg so it would be jagged.  Then glued all if it down with my Gorilla Wood Glue.

Now I needed to fill it in and round it out even more.

I used some caulk and just added until I got the look I was wanting.

At this point I can see exactly where this is going and I love it BUT my kids, my parents (even my father-retired artist from Hallmark-could not see how this was going to look like driftwood.  They thought I should just pitch it and erase the pictures and stop wasting my time.)

I made sure all the jagged edges were covered well.  After all I have 4 kiddos and I didn’t want any injuries, plus it needed to look like driftwood and driftwood has all those rough edges that have been tumbled off while out to sea.

Paint doesn’t stick to caulk very well, so I covered it in white tissue paper.

I had a little bit of my Deco Art Texture Crackle left over and so I smeared it over the tissue paper and then put it out in the nice hot garage to dry.

Once it was dry I started painting it. First I went over it with Bleached Sand and then some Khaki

Then I added in some raw umber.  I applied all of the paint with the Sponge brushes from Rockler.  I tore this  up. The Crackle was pretty rough on it.

Next I mixed together the slate grey, graphite and raw umber to create a color very close to a favorite color of  mine but since it is made by another company, I needed to mix the color I wanted.

You have to layer in your colors and I would let the sponge drag the color across an area.  I didn’t want it to all be blended.

I would go back in with a color here and there until I got the look that I wanted.

I added paint to one of the pieces of wood we found on the beach.

Once DRY-this is what I had:

Once my paint was completely dry, I drilled a hole into my wood HULL and then mixed my Gorilla epoxy glue and glued in my MAST.  Don’t you love all the crackling?

I used the Epoxy because this is what the Gorilla Glue website said about the Epoxy:

Gorilla Epoxy New Gorilla Epoxy is made with gap-filling capabilities and an all purpose formula that easily bonds steel, wood, aluminum, ceramic and more. Sets in just 5 minutes and provides high impact resistance for your toughest projects.

Do you see another piece of driftwood that I found?  That is what I used as my idea for creating my DRIFTWOOD and I have to say, I think I came mighty close to the real thing–if I do say so myself.

AHHHHH!!!  I love it.

Next I grabbed some of my supply of canvas cloth, ripped it so it would have raw edges and added some hemp rope to it and hot glued it to the stick.

I think I am going to get some smaller string and tie it on to the stick, I think I will like it even more like that.  I had a taupe colored cloth and added the little flag at the top in the darker color.

Next it was time for the STARboard to have a photo shoot.

I took some extra ripped canvas and wrapped it around the bottom of the stick and I love it.

What do you think?

Now I need a striped one and a few others in some adorable cloths.

I will be posting this over at the DIY Club. What projects will you post for the July Contest?

If you like my Driftwood Sailboat and want to post about it–I would love to have you do so.  Let me know and I will come over, if you post about it and I will leave you a comment.

www.itssoverycheri.com

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