Tutorial, Wall art," Save money, Live better": reuse! Part I

Hello, dear readers!

It's been a while since I have posted, for a good reason... I was crafting!
I really wanted to make all the wall art for my home by myself.
My idea for those pieces was to recycle/reuse as much as I can and to do with what I already have at home. Not buying anything.
So here is the first of the six I've done so far.

I absolutely wanted French words in the dinning area, it took some time to figure out wich words would be most relevant, my husband suggested Bon  Appétit, and I agreed. The font is the one called English, funny cause we choose it for it's French style.
The wood comes from a bench that the previous owner of my house left. It was naturally distressed by the Dutch weather so it was perfect for the style I wanted. Later on the process I found that the natural distressed look was not useful since I decided to use the craquelé effect.
Tutorial after the jump...




You will need:

Piece of wood
Sand paper
White school liquid glue
Glue gun
2 tea spoons
Spray paint for primer  (here grey)
Acrylic paint (here white)
Black acrylic paint for the words.
Thin brush (to fill the letters)
4 cm brush (to apply the white acrylic)
Mod podge + foam brush (or any kind of sealant)

First of all I sanded the wooden plank, and then I primed it with spray paint ( the grey on the picture).
The technique is simple; once you have primed and let dry your piece, you need to squeeze your white glue all over the primer, the young lady said that Elmer's white school glue is the best to do it, but I can't find it here in The Netherlands so I figured that Elmer's glue was just a simple white liquid school glue, and oh! I had a bottle in my atelier. Remember, no need to buy stuff!

Then without letting the glue dry (very important not to let the glue dry too much), apply the acrylic paint (white) on top of the glue and let dry for 24 hours (yes I know it's long but it's necessary)
You can see while it dries the craquelé effect appear. I used a 4 cm wide brush. Please note that this technique only work with acrylic paint on top of the white glue. The type of primer doesn't matter, you just have to keep in mind that the primer will be the colour appearing through the craquelé. The way you brush the acrylic on top of the glue will determine the way the craquelé will look like. For this one I brushed the white acrylic horizontally, but you can do it also vertically, or zig zag, just experiment and see which technique fits your project better.

Choose your police or word or form or design, print it in black.
Then, as you did when your were at school, you need to blacken the back of your print with a black pencil, then turn your paper on the right side, apply it on your piece of craquelé wood, and then trace contours of your design or word, it will be transferred on your piece of wood very easily, from there you just have to fill your design, letters, with black acrylic paint and a very thin brush.
Once dried I distressed the whole thing and sealed it with mod podge.
I also added two small tea spoon, I've got them for a while but never used them in a tea drinking situation cause they were way to small for my tea cups! For that last step the glue gun is your best friend!
Note, that I haven't bought anything to realise that project, that was my goal!

I'm planning on making another one in Dutch.