Hi there! The story should begin at the beginning, but I decided to take a little detour into the future of that time, skipping past moving in and at least two other projects to post about one of my favorite and easiest home improvements. The painted mailbox.
Note the little postage stamp size photo our sunshine mailbox (on the left). If you look closely at the banner picture you can see the mailbox on the fence there on the right. I tried to recreate the original design, sigh, but upon closer inspection the rays are too short and they all need to be lengthened by about a third. The original design was created using tissue paper using the technique for drawing an even free-hand portrait border described near the end of this post. But, today I thought, ha, I am going to use the computer to get this drawing done! All thoughts about how much time it actually takes to draw this way were ignored and here we are 12 hours later, and it is finally done.
Hey, there's Little One! His mama was feral and lived with a large band of her friends in the giant state protected mangrove behind our apartment. We adopted him when he was 3 weeks old, and had to feed him special kitten formula from a dropper since he still needed to be weaned.
Little One was a natural hugger much like Chubby Hugs, he loved to be picked up and carried around and would instantly wrap his paws around your neck. He always surprised the veterinarian assistants. We have many funny family stories about Little One. Here he is picking his way through our yard at our first house, this was the first time he had been outside in the 4 years since he was born (he was forced into being a high rise apartment cat for a while).
Okay, back to the mailbox. More stories about what happened immediately after moving in will be the subject of the next post.
We inherited one of those regular metal boxes like this one, from the previous owners. Since it was on the outside of the fence, and since it was one of the first things people saw when they came up to our house I wanted it to be more welcoming. So along with painting the moon and stars onto the chimney, the mailbox also got a face-lift.
To prep the surface I remember giving the box a very light sanding with a fine grit sandpaper, cleaning the dust off with a tack cloth (a very important step - don't skip), priming with a metal primer, and finally brushing on exterior house paint in this color (Behr paint color American Anthem was the closest color I could find to what I remember using). You could get fancy and use auto paint sold at auto parts shops, but the character of your box will be slicker and less like the surface of your house. This is your call, sometimes contrasts are really good and work well, depending on the style of house you have.
Now for the fun part.
Print out the PDF onto cardstock. You will need to use a heavier paper so that the stencil has enough body to be able to work. If you don't have cardstock around, just print the pattern out on regular paper, glue it onto thin cardboard and cut through the pattern and the cardboard at the same time to make your stencil. You will need to have a good exacto knife and a cutting mat, and use a lot of care when using the exacto. Never force the blade, use lighter pressure and go over cuts a few times instead of trying to cut through everything all in one cut.
Cut away all of the white areas of the sun's face, rays and the circle that surrounds the face. You will notice that the circle is broken with blue at the top, bottom and sides. This is on purpose so that your stencil stays in one piece after you have cut out the rest of the pieces of the circle.
After the stencil is cut out, apply a repositionable glue to the back following manufacturer's directions. Place the stencil onto the front of the painted mailbox. Close the lid of the mailbox to check the placement of the sun face, and change the position of stencil if needed. Check one last time to make sure everything is centered. When doing projects like this one, it can sometimes save a lot of aggravation later to recheck 3 times. I used to be very impatient and never checked anything but I have learned the hard way that not checking is usually exactly when you need to really look at what you are doing. Make sure the entire stencil is firmly adhered to the mailbox. If parts of the stencil are not sticking the paint can work its way underneath and the design will not come out as crisp and you will lose details.
This next step is where I probably spraypainted the white sun face on. I am not entirely sure what I did then. Odds are that the spray paint was used, since it is quick. Just spray very evenly and lightly to build the color up if you decide to use spray paint, and make sure to mask off all the areas where you do not want spray paint to show (this includes the floor and any other adjacent surfaces). If you are familiar with using a stencil and want to apply the paint with a brush, make sure the brush bristles are short and stiff, and the brush is dry. Dab a tiny amount of the paint onto the brush then dab off the excess onto a paper plate. The bristles should look like the paint color but they should be almost dry. Pounce the brush onto the stencil, working slowly to develop color in the cutout spaces of the stencil. You will probably have to apply a few layers of color using the brush method, waiting between coats so that the paint dries before you apply the next layer of white paint.
Once all of the painting is done, very carefully lift off the stencil, taking care not to smear the design. Set aside to dry. Once it is dry go back with the white paint and a tiny brush and connect the stencil gaps in the circle that frames the face. Re-hang the mailbox and enjoy!
P.S. Dear Readers - if you are busy painting a mailbox based on this design please send me a note to let me know - I would love to show off your mailboxes!
