An America sign

I grew up on the other side of the country from where I currently live, and have managed to keep in touch with my best childhood friend, Katie.  She just came out to visit her sister last week and stopped by my place for a night and the next day.  We had SO MUCH FUN catching up in person, eating snow cones, cooking blueberry pancakes, and getting our craft on.

Here's what we started that morning, that I just finished up today at lunch (and just in time for the 4th!):

It's constructed of a 3/4" x 12" x 24" particle board, with particle board 1x1s stacked on top of it as the frame.

I love the totally distressed look for this piece.  I hadn't planned on it at all, but Katie suggested doing a crackle coat on the base, and I was in love with it!

We purposely roughed up the layers of paint as we went so it didn't look too nicey nice, which added even more to the over all rough and rustic look.

After the paint dried and I sanded the entire surface of the A (including right over the top of that vinyl star), I rubbed some stain over the whole thing with a sock, then went over it immediately with another sock I had dipped in water.  I love how it turned out!

Then I sanded across the tops and edges of the blue frame

And cut a saying I love out of brown vinyl on my Cricut (I used a program called Sure Cuts A Lot 2, which allows you to cut any font on your computer.  I bought the program shortly after I bought my Cricut, and haven't bought ANY cartridges other than the ones that came with the machine. I love it!)  

The font I chose is Aquiline from Dafont.com.

Isn't it beautiful?