Today I am going to show you how to turn Paint/Ruler Sticks into Reindeer names wall decor. All you need are some paint/ruler sticks, paint or stain, and vinyl Reindeer names. Embellishments are completely optional.
I love how you can use paint/ruler sticks as wooden planks to make wall decor. They are easy to cut, easy to paint or stain and easy to glue to each other or other items. At my local Home Depot and Lowe’s, they come in two different sizes and are called Ruler sticks. I just call them paint sticks. I have used the smaller ones for other crafts, but for this one, I got the bigger 21″ Ruler Sticks. They come in a pack of three and I used 4 packs of them. I used 9 for the Reindeer names and then 2 for the back. So I had one leftover.
I started by measuring how big my lettering could be to fit on the stick. Then I went to Cricut Design Space and played around with different fonts to see what I liked the best. If you don’t have a Cricut, you can find already made vinyl letters at craft stores like Hobby Lobby and Michaels. Or you could use stencils and paint them on yourself. I chose the font Saker Sans for my Reindeer names. I love it because it is kind of whimsical. And as an added bonus, if you don’t transfer them completely straight on the boards, you can’t really tell!
Next I used my miter box and saw and just cut off the handle end of the paint/ruler sticks.
If you know how long you want your names to be, you can go ahead and cut them to size when you cut the handle off. I was not sure yet, because I knew I wanted to add some little wooden deer I had, but I needed to see the placement of everything first.
After cutting the handle off, I did the fake stain on them using Waverly Antique Wax. I call it fake stain, when I paint a few streaks of paint on then use a baby wipe to wipe it away. It goes down into the groove of the sticks and looks like stain instead of just paint.
Next, I took my vinyl Reindeer names, the deer ornaments, a red nose I found for Rudolph and laid it all down on the sticks. I played around the placement, I considered having the sticks butted up against each other and having them straight on both sided. I ended up deciding on spacing between each stick and staggering the sticks. My sticks ended up being too long for the look I was going for, so I trimmed a few more inches off each of the sticks.
Then, I used wood glue to glue the sticks on the two back sticks. I was trying to just eyeball them being the same distance from each other and my husband recommended using the pieces I had cut (and some others leftover from another craft) to separate them while the glue dried. Once again, take from my bloopers and mistakes, and do not use hot glue and mod podge on them. The hot glue does not take to the sticks and it causes them to have a gap between them. That mixed with the mod podge had them moving around if I just touched one. I ended up having to peel all the dried glue off of every one of them and since I was frustrated I just grabbed some wood glue we had and used that. Let them sit for about 30 minutes to an hour so the glue starts to set and you can touch them without them moving all around.
While waiting for the glue to dry, I went ahead and painted the reindeer white. I was going to leave them as they were, but I didn’t like the wood tone with the Waverly antique wax stain.
After the glue is set, is to use transfer tape to adhere the Reindeer names on the sticks. I was able to use the same piece of transfer tape for all the names. Just lay the name on the paint stick and carefully peel the transfer tape off. Then move on to the next name and on and on until all the Reindeer names are transferred to the sticks.
Now all I had to do was mod podge the deer and Rudolphs nose in place of the O on his name. And that’s it. This was really easy to do and my finished project measures 17 and 1/4 inches by 16 inches. So it is a really good size to hang on your wall. You could also staple or glue some twine or rope to the back at the top to use to hang. I just hung mine in our foyer before you enter the living room with command strips.
And finally, the finished project! I really love it and I think it is so unique. I have certainly never seen anything similar to this in stores.
Tell me what you think and if you made this or even if you made your own customized Reindeer names wall decor! Questions, comments and suggestions are always welcome. Looking for other fun and easy Christmas crafts?
[…] actually decided to hang this beside the Reindeer names post I did last week. So here they are […]