Wednesday, January 20, 2010

personalized wall clock tutorial



Our friend, Rebecca, has this lovely wall clock in her house. The most impressive part about this clock is that she made it herself. She was gracious enough to spend a morning show me how to make my very own, and we documented each step in case one of you also wanted to decorate your walls with a personalized clock.

This may be a project you want to do with friends because it is cheaper to buy all the supplies in bulk (5 or more).

Supplies:
*One wood table top. We found ours at Lowes and picked up the 24 inch piece. We had to drill a hole in our center and route out a place for the clock mechanism. You will need to do this part too.
*One vinyl clock sticker (we bought ours HERE)
*Clock mechanism and hands (we bought ours HERE)
*Paint-three to four different colors. We used linen, spice, cream, and a brown.
*Brushes
*Krylon Clear Coat Spray (either gloss or matte)
*Plastic garbage bags
*Sponge

First, you will need to drill a hole in the center of your wood, route out a space big enough for the clock mechanism and sand the whole piece.


Next, very quickly paint stripes in contrasting colors. Try not to let the paint dry. We did this in brown and linen.


Quickly, use the plastic grocery bags to smudge the paint. Do this by dabbing the bags up and down all over very quickly.


Next, get our your sponges and some more paint. We used cream and spice here. We dabbed the sponge in the paint and applied all over the wood until we were happy with how it looked. If you don't like it, just sand the wood and start over. There really is no wrong way to do this.




Once we were happy with the paint job, we took white and black paint and painted "cracks" or random wavy lines on the board.


Pre vinyl sticker:


After the wood was nice and dry, we applied the vinyl sticker and added the clock mechanism. My vinyl sticker says our Clark Family Est. 1999. You could do anything with your vinyl, or leave it off altogether. For our last step, we applied a clear Krylon spray coat to protect it all. Now it is ready for hanging.


(Note from Mandy: When I saw Stacy's clock in person, I couldn't believe it was made out of wood! It really looks like it's made from a slab of marble--gorgeous. )

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15 Comments

15 Responses to “personalized wall clock tutorial”

Stephanie said...

How awesome! These would make great gifts too - helps the buying in bulk cause. I would have never thought to make my own gargatuan wall clock. They are SO expensive and this one is PERSONALIZED to boot!

Thanks ;)

LuLu Kellogg said...

This looks amazing! What a great project. Thank you for sharing this.

LuLu Kellogg

Elaine A said...

This is such a beautiful clock. I may have to try this with my sister. It looks like fun. Thank you for the tutorial.

Elaine Allen

This N That said...

Wow, that's a million times easier than I anticipated when I started reading this post! Very inspirational! Thanks!

Myrnie said...

I have a clock like this, from my husband's aunt. I love it!! Thanks for the tutorial- now I know how to make it :) When I first saw hers, I really thought it was granite. Gorgeous!!

Martha said...

Very pretty!

The Miller Family said...

Beautiful!!! Thanks so much for the tutorial...I've always wondered how these were made!

-Sydney- said...

Cool! The hardest part is probably routing out the part for the clock mechanism, right? (esp if you don't have a router :)) What sort of painting did you do on the edges? More sponging? I'm going to have to bookmark this for later.

Tina said...

That is awesome! Do you have an idea of what the total cost was?

Little Birdie Secrets said...

This cost around $40.

Me and My Gang said...

SWEET! Thanks for sharing it looks great can't wait to try it. Would you mind adding the cost to your post? Thanks again!

Becca said...

What clock mechanism did you get? What length hands?

Little Birdie Secrets said...

Here's what I used:

High Torque Movement - "AA" Cell (MVT712HT)
Model MVT712HT - 5/16 in. Shaft Diameter
10" Hour and Minute Hands for High Torque Movements (HND1473BHT-T)
Model HND1473BHT-T - 10 in. Black

Agnes Sim said...

OMG! It's awesome art work. well done

Mindy said...

Looks great! Thanks for showing how. See my blog - http://mindy-thislittlelightofmine.blogspot.com/.html

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