A Mailbox Makeover

This week's project isn't my typical craft project. My brother brought this one to me.

He works for a farm in my home community and decided the mailbox was in dire need of a makeover. He heard that I recently purchased a Silhouette and enlisted my assistance to get 'er done.

First he sandblasted the mailbox (I have no idea what this entails..it's just what he told me before he brought the mailbox to my house and dumped sandblasted dust all over my floor...I recommend cleaning out the dust before bringing it inside to work on ;-D).

Second he coated the box in John Deere Green and the lid in John Deere yellow. They actually sell licensed John Deere green and yellow at hardware stores. Who knew?! Not me, obviously.

Then he showed me a few graphics on the Internet he wanted to use on the mailbox for stenciling. I took the graphics and convered them to Silhouette shapes and after several rounds of using the lightest paper on the stickiest mat, I finally switched to a poster board material and was able to make some solid stencils without ripping it upon pulling off the Silhouette mat.

Tip for converting graphics to Silhouette shapes....the graphics with the simplest lines and fewest colors are easiest to convert.

We used a stencil adhesive on each of the stencils to adhere them to the mailbox and then taped around them to limit overspray.



It looked super sharp and those numbers are the house numbers. Don't they look just like a tractor serial number would? I thought it turned out awesome.

And, here's a few pics of the final product on its post at the farm.

The owners were stoked to have it and it was fun to make!

Linking up to these parties this week!