Easy Wall Decor - Wooden Tiles

I got this idea from a magazine several years ago, I wish I could find the article but 2 hours worth of searching has not gotten me anywhere. You can modify to your heart's desire to match your decor. It just so happens that the original color scheme from the magazine fits my bedroom colors (cream and brown with touches of teal). Also, you can modify the number of tiles. I know I cut it down from the original number.



Supplies

9 Wooden Tiles, 7 1/4" x 8" x 1" (cut from 1x8 inch board.. apparently 1x8s are only about 7 1/4 inches wide)
Brown acrylic paint
Black acrylic paint
Medium sized paint brushes
Gold Leafing
Gold Metallic Lettering Pen
Gold Stencil Paint and stencil brush/paint dauber
2-3 Stencils that will fit on cut boards
Wall Paper Samples Book*

*Discontinued wall paper samples books can be obtained by visiting shops that sell wall paper and asking if they are willing to sell any or purchase off eBay.

Sand all edges smooth.

Paint two tiles black and let them dry. Paint 2-3 other tiles in brown and let them dry.

Go through the wall paper book and select 5-6 patters and remove from the books. Cut to fit the tiles, so that they wrap around the tiles and overlap on the backside of the board. Use a heavy-duty stapler to secure.




For the brown tiles, chooses stencils and apply with gold stencil paint. Let dry. When dry, use a paper towel and light brush edges with a small amount of gold paint to give it an "antiqued" look.



Take one black tile and apply gold leafing to the entire surface. Follow instructions on the package.



Using the metallic pen, choose a poem or piece of prose and write in very loose, almost sloppy handwriting. My hint on this is don't start from the beginning, pick a section that speaks to you and write until you can't fit anymore on. Mine is from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese".



To hang, determine the arrangement and apply fasteners. I used 3M's Picture Hangers (I think that is what they are called), they are two pieces with velcro and easy to remove tabs should you need to take them down.



I apologize for the picture quality in some shots. I didn't want to take them all off the wall because putting the back up (for me) is difficult and getting the 2 I took down back up took longer than I wanted due to the fact that I am extremely OCD and getting them straight drove me crazy. So I stood on tip toe to get most of them!!

As you can see I chose to do 2 stencils, and 5 wall paper, the book I chose had a lot of selections that I thought worked well and I didn't trust my painting/stenciling skills very well. The gold leafing was not as hard as I thought it would be, although the hardest part of that for me was making sure that the leaves did not stick to itself while I was laying them down.