This is a story about love.  A man who loves a woman.  A woman who loves a blog.  A designer who loves to create.  I received an e-mail last week from a gentleman…let’s call him “Rupert.”  Rupert had a request.  His wife, let’s call her “Annabel”, loves my blog and he would love to surprise her with one of my hand painted signs for mother’s day.  Unfortunately, all of the signs he was interested in were sold.  It’s one of my busiest months, but I just couldn’t say no to creating a custom sign just for them. He wanted something French, related to ice cream or candy.  I found a vintage French chocolate label on The Graphics Fairy and designed a sign around it.  Rupert wanted a graphic, so I used the crown image from the label. …and he wanted blue and white, so I used Annie Sloan’s Aubusson with Old White

I thought I would share my latest hand painted sign with you today.  It’s a big one…about five feet long! I used an antique Christmas coffee ad I found at The Graphics Fairy.  I cropped the text and put it in my projector to transfer it to my board.  I found this awesome door at an antique store a few weeks ago.  It was painted in the prettiest chalky blue and had really cool hinges.  Honestly, I’ve been hoarding it for myself, but it’s just been sitting in my office and I needed things to take to Lucketts, so I had to let it go.  Donna, I know you’re suffering from rust envy.  Just go snuggle with one of your bolts and you’ll be okay.  Oh…it looked so perfect in my house.  Sigh.  Can’t keep ’em all.  If you’re interested in making an “old” sign of your own, check out

In the frenzy of getting things ready to take to my retail spaces, I turned my attention to two neglected pieces of wood in the corner of my office.  They belonged to a drop leaf table that had seen better days.  For the first one, I pulled some inspiration from The Graphics Fairy, where I found this beautiful bee graphic. I’ve been thinking about making an Apiary sign for a while, so I enjoyed finally putting brush to board on this one. This one is going to the Old Lucketts Store to sell.  The second sign was inspired by what I’ve been eating far too much of lately… …and now I have to start Weight Watchers online and working with my “personal trainer” on the Kinect.  You’d think I’d lose weight with all of the work I do, but when you replace running on the treadmill with blogging…well…enough said.  Anyway, I