Monday, August 27, 2012

Literary Garden Sign Post!

I have been immersed in my garden and garden house this summer, though the gardening part has been mainly dreaming...  The garden house is DONE!!  The big reveal will be tomorrow!  In the mean time I have been dreaming up ideas to give a literary bent to my garden as well as to my garden house.  This literary reference multi sign post "occurred" over the weekend.


I even included a board with the name of the garden house on it, and made sure that it points directly to the garden house.  "Chawton Cottage" was Jane Austen's home for most of her writing career.




Of course the little rabbit with his pocket watch is right out of Wonderland, note the sign board above.  Not sure just how many literary reference statuary pieces I am going to be able to run across, but I loved him!!

 
And I was so tickled when I went out to take pics of the signboards, and there was a rainbow, in honor of the Emerald City sign board (above), I must assume!!
 
Gathering the odd boards, with old paint wasn't too hard since I am an antique dealer who always tucks away interesting bits for 'someday' ... well this past weekend was someday, I guess!

 
I used lots of methods to letter the signs, so they would look like they had been placed at the cross roads by various persons.  I used decoupaging of a whole sign image, and also of cut out letters, stamping, a few were hand lettered in different styles, I embellished stamped letters on one sign to make them look different, stenciled one sign, and even added a running rabbit from Graphics Fairy to my Watershipdown sign.

 
Check out the top picture again, it shows all 10 boards, can you figure out the book that each sign refers to?  Two of the signs refer to the home of a famous author, but the other eight are fictional sites from favorite books!
 
And don't forget to come back tomorrow for my garden house revel!!

16 comments:

  1. Oh that is just marvelous! You are so clever! Those literary signs are very cool and I did recognize most of them. I love, love, love this! (and how cool is that rainbow pic??!!)

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  2. What a fun, clever idea! Can't wait to see the rest of this amazing project.

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  3. This is absolutely wonderful!
    I am in awe...
    Did you pound it in the ground, or is it in a bucket?
    Every sign is different and personalized. Brilliant!

    Crystelle
    http://www.crystelleboutique.com/

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    1. I used a post hole digging shovel to dig about a foot down, then sunk the post in and tamped the earth around it as we replaced the dirt. Pretty simple really, you just have to allow for a foot of post to go into the ground.

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  4. I knew 7. My fav is the Rivendell for which you used elvish script. Love it! Lol.
    I'm your newest follower.

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  5. Great idea! You have inspired me to do something similar for my students. I cannot wait to see the whole reveal. I'm so excited!

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  6. That turned out really cute...looks like your shed is looking really cute too. Aren't they fun to fix up?
    Debbie

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  7. Love this idea! If I ever get my own house, I want to make one similar. So cute and clever--very imaginative.

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  8. I love this! It is something I already talked about doing with my husband, we just need to aquire the materials. How fun, now I am even more excited to do this project! :)

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  9. Very nice. Thanks for sharing at Shabbilicious Friday.

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  10. I love this and hope to copy it for my yard (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?). Did you seal the signs or are you letting them age?

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    1. I did seal them, I used varathane, they looked good one year the next year they were faded, but charming anyway, the third year, this year too shabby and I took it down to repaint the arrows.

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    2. Thank you so much for your update!! I plan to copy you this week - what wood would you recommend for the post? And what size? 2x2?

      I'm thinking that I might just hang the arrows from nails in the post - so that I could change out the signs on a whim. I have way more than 10 places!!

      Thank you so much for sharing this with us! I truly love your idea and your execution!!

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    3. Sounds like some great improvements I like the idea of making arrows interchangeable

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