Restoration Hardware Wall Carving Knock Off

I hope you have had a great week! It seems that my week has just flown by and I feel like I have not gotten done what I set out to do…..do you have weeks like that? I find it incredibly frustrating and it makes my mind whirl a million miles a minute thinking about all that I still have to do and the little time I have left. I had another project to share with you today but unfortunately I have encountered a slight hiccup and I need to re-think what I am doing. I know I need to come at it a different way and for me to do that I have to put space between me and the project or I will get really annoyed and either cry or want to throw it against a wall……neither is a good thing……so it gets pushed to the side for the moment. Instead I get to share this Restoration Hardware Wall Carving Knock Off which is something I have wanted to do for months but just never got round to it.

Ideas come to me in all sorts of ways, a lot of the time it is when I am shopping (either in person or online). In this case I was shopping at one of my favourite places here in Australia……Bed Bath N Table…..they sell lots of stuff you don’t need but must have…..also known as knick knacks! At Easter time when I was shopping for discounted Easter Decorations I came across these white resin wall carvings….they looked a little cheap but were well priced and I knew with a little paint and imagination I could make them look better.

When I got home I remembered an image I had pinned from Restoration Hardware.

I knew it would be easy to recreate these with a little wood and paint. So I bought some MDF and Wood Trim.

I cut the MDF in a square that would fit each of the carvings and the wood trim.

I cut the trim with mitered corners and then glued and nailed these onto the MDF board. I then glued the carvings in the center.

The next step I didn’t take photos of as it wasn’t really necessary. To make it all look like wood and get the colours right I knew I would need to use Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. What is great about chalk paint is that it is really thick and can add texture to your work quite easily if you need it to, this is why this type of paint is perfect for a project like this. First I painted one solid coat of Country Grey over each framed wall carvings making sure to get into all the grooves. I let this dry and mixed up one part Country Grey with one part Scandinavian Pink (this gave me that slight pinky-cream colour you can see in the original). I used this custom colour to brush on all the areas I planned to distress and let it dry. I then did a final coat of Pure White, you want to do just one coat as you want to see the colours below. Just before the paint was dry I brush back over it so that it would mimic the grain of wood. Once it was completely dry I distressed just like my inspiration photo.

I haven’t quite decided where exactly to hang them yet but when I do I will make sure to take some more photos! Cause really this isn’t over done with photos at all! Now if I can just find all that time I seemed to have mislaid this week I can get some more projects finished. Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

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