Mailbox Makeover

The other day I decided to give our mailbox a little makeover.  It had some small rust spots on the hinge and the numbers were just your run-of-the-mill hardware stickers.  It definitely needed a little sprucing.  Sadly, I forgot to take a "Before" shot (I'm out of practice with the blog!) so we'll have to jump right into the spray painting phase.

I bought a can of Hammerite Rust Cap spray paint that encapsulates rust and sprayed the entire box.

While that dried, I designed the letters and numbers on my computer.  I was inspired by Blueprint's first cover so I tried to pick fonts that looked similar.  In the end I downloaded Gold Plated from DaFont and used Bodoni for the numbers.

I printed it out to size on my printer...

And then shaded the back with pencil.  This creates a mock carbon paper so you can use it to trace.

Next, I taped the design onto the mailbox and traced the letters and numbers with a pencil.

Which left this outline:

I couldn't find any black paint in my stash until I remembered I had my old art kit.  Seriously, I think it's from the 70's.  Surprisingly the paint still was in good condition so I just used the acrylic paint to fill in the outlines.

And here is the finished version!  Just need to spray a top coat of clear sealant and we're good to go.

I love the way it turned out and it makes me smile every time I walk through our gate!