Create Beautiful Art out of an Old Wooden Spool

Turning a wooden spool into art couldn’t be easier.  Well… that is… if you don’t run into any little surprises along the way 🙂

I found this old wooden spool on one of my road trips and even though I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with at the time, knew it had to come home with me.

It sat around for a while as I threw around ideas of what to do with it.  I finally decided I wanted to use the beautiful end pieces of wood for some art.  That, unfortunately was easier said then done.

The screws and the bolts were so rusted that I could not get them off for the life of me.
I.  Tried.  Everything.
I finally had to use a saw to cut through them and boy was my arm sore by the end of the third one!  When I finally got those off, of course, there was a little surprise waiting for me down the middle of the spool.   Something had, at some point in time, if not many points in time, taken up residence in the middle. It was apparently a very comfy, dry, rent-free place for little things to live.  Lucky me!  Actually I was very lucky… whatever had been living in the middle had long since vacated.  PHEW!!!  So here is my big tip for anyone taking one of these gorgeous old spools home… leave it outside and be sure to evict whatever may be using the spool as a home! Once the screws and bolts were taken care of and I had cleaned up the “housing” material I had found, I gave the wood a GOOD scrub with soap and water.  Actually several good cleanings; letting it dry in the sun in between each one.  Now that I had sparkling clean tops, I gave them a single coat of [easyazon_link identifier=”B01GWBL0FY” locale=”US” tag=”recredesig20-20″]Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint in Ironstone[/easyazon_link].  It had just the look I wanted to match the old, aged wood.  To create the word art on the spool top, I printed out the saying that I wanted to use in several different sizes and fonts and arranged it on the wood.   (see another project using this method here) I used a sheet of [easyazon_link identifier=”B01N2H33UN” locale=”US” tag=”recredesig20-20″]graphite paper[/easyazon_link] under each word to trace the outline of each letter with a pen.  Once the letters were traced, there is a perfect pattern to paint.  To finish off the sign, I used a fine paint brush and some [easyazon_link identifier=”B00O2JNZ3Y” locale=”US” tag=”recredesig20-20″]Fusion Mineral Paint in Coal Black[/easyazon_link] to fill in the letters.  I still tell myself that it was probably a sweet bird living in the middle of the spool and not something rodent like.
I love birds.
I am not a big fan of rodents.
And to honour the little bird that I am SURE was living inside, I added a sweet little one to the spool art.  This piece of art now hangs on the wall in my studio area to remind me daily that I need to keep moving towards living the life that I dream.

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