I absolutely LOVE a good crafty project. Pinterest is one of my favorite sites to peruse. I could spend hours searching for a new project, decorating ideas and yummy foods to make. I’ve been known to host ‘Pinterest Parties’ at my house… an excuse to spend time with friends while making something fun and crafty.
Favorite Project
One of my favorite projects was the barn quilt that now decorates our chicken coop. It was an easy, but time consuming endeavor. Below are directions on how I created mine. This could be done at any scale… a small 8″x8″ kitchen decor propped on an easel all the way up to a 5’x5′ barn panel. The creativity options are endless. There are SO MANY design ideas and color combinations. If you search online you will find tons of ideas… but you can also just get creative and come up with your own!
Choosing a Design
First, you MUST spend hours and hours looking for THE perfect design. Pinterest is a great place to do this. I found a design called Rocky Mountain Chain that I liked, then I modified it to be something I loved.
Then, you MUST spend hours and hours looking for THE perfect color palette. Pinterest is a good place to do THIS as well! This is one of my favorite parts, but in the end, I went with colors I had on hand.
Planning
After that, you’re ready to plan your design. I’m lucky enough to know, and have access to, Adobe Photoshop CC so I planned my design using a grid on the computer. (FYI: This program is AMAZING. You can pretty much do anything from editing photos to designing and drawing. I love it… but it did take quite a while to learn it well. I have an educator’s license because I am a teacher, and I pay a monthly fee for their design suite of programs because I use several.)
Painting
Then draw a very light grid on your board and begin taping off, lightest colors first. I used basic acrylic paints. I started with my white parts. Everything showing will be painted white except the middle ring. You can’t see it very well, but if you look really close you will notice that I penciled in a letter in each space to hep with the colors. There’s a W for white in all the white spaced. I really didn’t want to make a mistake. A light pencil mark did not show up after being painted so it worked perfectly!
After each color, you will need to let the paint dry, carefully remove the painter’s tape, and then tape off the next section. This process will possibly take more than one day but you could speed it up with a fan blowing on the painted board. After the white, I taped off yellow and mint.
Then the turquoise and navy.
Lastly, the bright purple. I decided to paint the wood spaces instead of leaving them exposed… so I tested out a light gray and decided that it would look great. After painting the final coat, I sealed it with a spray seal. Regretfully, I should have put more coats on! Now that it’s a couple years later, the paint is starting to peel and fade because of the weather.
Displaying
When it was done, we decided to hang it on the chicken coop to ‘decorate’. Our coop is a piece-meal, goofy looking coop… but we repurposed lots of items from around our homestead so I guess that’s what happens! Anyway, I think the barn quilt gives it a nice added pop.
My next step is to make a HUGE version for our barn that can be seen from the highway. It will look awesome I’m sure!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick tutorial. Have you ever created a barn quilt? If so, leave a comment! I would love to hear about your experience!
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