Scavenger Chic

Hush Little Baby Wall Art, Upcycled Shutter Slats

• By Joan
• March 17, 2021
• 4 Comments

Hush Little Baby Wall Art, Upcycled Shutter Slats

A week ago Friday, one of my favorite building salvage places, Second Chance in Baltimore, posted on Facebook that they were stocking up their freebie pile in the parking lot.  It’s where they haul stuff that is in rough condition or hasn’t sold.  On Facebook they showed lots of furniture and other stuff.  I didn’t see the post until Sunday but I immediately wanted to check it out.  Grabbed hubby and we were out the door.

By the time we arrived on Sunday, most of the furniture was already gone.  No worries, I didn’t really have room for any large pieces at the moment, but I do have a hard time resisting free.  What did catch my eye was this half shutter.  The other half, with all it’s shutter slats, was scattered on the ground.  So I picked up all the random shutter slats and thru them in the car.

What was I thinking?  Should I just leave all the rest of those perfectly nice shutter slats just sitting there?  No, of course not.  I thru the other half of the shutter in the car as well.

I’m no stranger to shutter slats.  In fact I’ve done a few projects with those wayward slats including an American flag, bird house and a serving tray. You can find all 32 of my shutter projects here.

I also picked up a door and some old hardwood flooring, though I have no plans for either of those yet. It was a good day.

Thoughts of this project had been swirling in my head for a couple of weeks.  With a new baby in the family, see last weeks post, my idea was to take a favorite bedtime song or nursery rhyme and stencil or stamp it out on canvas.

After consulting with my son, the new daddy, he informed me that he likes to sing Don’t Worry be Happy.  Love that, but I don’t think I could post that here because it’s copyright protected.  Mama sings  Hush Little Baby but “with less buying”.

Hush Little Baby was  always one of my favorites to sing though I often got the verses mixed up, and somewhere I put a horse and yolk in there which totally thru off the lyrics.  Hush Little Baby it is.

I was having a hard time working out how to put this project  on canvas because I had no idea how wide the canvas would need to be or how long.  I would have to do a lot of preplanning to get it perfectly centered.

That’s where these perfectly perfect shutter slats came into play.  If I could stencil the words directly onto the slats I could measure and center after the stenciling was done.

This was an extra wide shutter at 23″, the slats were 19″. 

First step was to paint the slats with a nice greige, gray beige chalkpaint.    This color is Castle by FolkArt.

After the chalk paint was dry I lightly sanded the slats to bring out a little aged layered paint. I was ready to stencil.

The stencils are from Michaels, Martha Stewart  Adhesive Laser cut Stencils, though I never used the adhesive.  They were absolutely the perfect size for a shutter slat.

Just start dabbing away with a stencil brush and white paint. 

Make sure you have an extra sheet of paper to dab off all the excess paint.

Since so many of the lines start with “papa’s gonna buy you a”, you can easily mass produce.

With every other line I started with a half slat so that there wouldn’t be line going directly down my song.  It’s like hardwood flooring, staggering the seams.

You can also mass produce all the “And if that”. 

Make sure you clean your stencils when you notice them getting clogged.  The “A” was particularly bad after all the Papas, gonnas and A’s.

I finally finished all the stenciling and found that with spacing, centering and a nice border I would need a backer board about 36×36″

Home Depot sells thin 4’x4′ plywood project boards.  If you don’t have a saw at home or if a 4 ft  board is too wide for your car, get Home Depot to cut the board in the store.

Measure and cut your backing board.

I painted my backer board  black so the words really pop.

Because I only got the 1/4″ plywood, which is super thin, I added a frame of scrap wood to the back for stability.  Glue and nail to your backing.

I’m also planning on adding a frame and this extra edging will give me something to attach the frame to.

Lay out your song one more time getting your spacing and edges perfect.  

Time to start gluing.  This is builders adhesive.  One tube almost lasted the entire project.  The last line has wood glue.  Let dry overnight.

The final step was to cut a piece of pallet wood in half lengthwise and frame out the piece.

Perfect for a baby’s room, but think about a special song, poem, quote, whatever inspires you.

Have a great day.

More Shutter Slat Projects

Shutter Slat American Flag

Related posts:

DIY Upcycled Frame and a New Baby Railroad Spike Coat Rack diy Pallet Wood, Shutters and Thingamajigs Thrift Store Tray Makeover with Shutter Slats