My friend at work is having a baby!!!
She already found out that it's a boy; and the family decided on the name Killian!
To give you some background information on Mom and Dad-to-be, both of them are HUGE Disney fans! They visit Orlando every chance they get! Hence the inspiration for the name!
See, Killian is the real name of Captain Hook in the series "Once Upon a Time." They decided on the name as a subtle nod to the Disney character, but also a strong name that can stand on it's own!
I really wanted to make a nursery name sign for Mom and for baby; she really liked the last one I made for another work friend (The Savannah Kendall Sign, check out the blog entry!).
Having plenty to go off of with the backstory and knowing Mom really well, I didn't really ask for any more information. I just got to work!
Right off the bat, I cheated!
Bad Kevin...
Instead of buying a large sheet of spruce and cutting out a circle myself, I went ahead and bought a pre-cut round, same as I did with the Custom Wedding Name Tray (check out the blog entry!). This was simply to save time. PLUS: it's really hard to cut out a perfect circle using traditional tools. There's a lot of cutting, sanding and smoothing involved to get a *close to* perfect circle.
So, I took a shortcut. Sue me!
Next, I gave the round a light sanding and cleaning before stain...
I stained both sides with Minwax Provincial stain; I wiped it on with a stain rag.
You may recall, if you saw my previous nursery sign post, that I used a much darker stain the last time around. That was my initial plan.
BUT...
Since we are going with a Captain Hook/Peter Pan theme on this one, I wanted the wood to look more rustic...Like the side of a pirate ship!
After the stain fully dried, I put it to the side and moved on to the letters...
I went with "Enchanted Land" font for the lettering; it's modeled after the Disneyland font. It's bold, strong, and even looks like a pirate font!
Since I'm only doing the first name, I wanted to make sure it's big enough to fill out the whole sign.
Before, I moved on to cutting, I decided to map out the entire design and see if I could add some more elements to make it unique...
I wanted to do a cute little "homage" to Captain Hook somewhere on the sign, so I decided on the bottom half. I also included Tick-Tock's tail in the water to terrorize Hook a little bit (Tick-Tock is the alligator from Disney's Peter Pan). These pieces will be made using 3/4" common board, same as the letters!
I also cut out some stencils of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. My plan is to trace them out at the top of the sign and black them in as silhouettes flying away from Captain Hook!
Now that I've got all the plans, it's time to get to cutting!
I put masking tape down on a sheet of 3/4" common board I had laying around. This protects the wood from getting sticky from the adhesive I use to stick the paper on. I sprayed the adhesive and positioned the name on the wood. I also did the same with Captain Hook, the water, the ship and Tick-Tock's tail.
To the scroll saw!
I cut out the letters first. These letters weren't too difficult to cut out because of their thickness and there weren't very many sharp turns. For the "a," I drilled a hole just wide enough for my scroll saw blade to fit in, and I cut it from the inside out.
The other parts were not so easy...
There were A LOT of twists and turns for the little pieces, especially Captain Hook's body and accessories. It took some time, but I got it done!
For Captain Hook's eyes, I used a small drill bit and drilled them out.
Now, to remove the paper and tape!
Next up was a quick sanding. I didn't do too much sanding on the letters of his name because I like the bold outline and the sharp corners; looks more pirate-like! Same with the water and Tick-Tock's tail.
For Captain Hook, I sanded him down quite a bit to round out the edges and remove the splinters. With him, I wanted more of an intarsia look, where the edges are rounded and then pieced together. I think it's a better look overall.
After a wipe down to remove the sawdust, it's time for paint!
I used acrylic paints on the letters...
...and Minwax Dark Walnut stain on his pirate ship! I decided on stain for the ship to look more authentic!
After letting everything fully dry overnight, it's time for assembly!
I used Liquid Nails to glue everything down. Some of the smaller pieces, like his hook and sword were glued down using super glue. I let it fully dry overnight.
There was some spill-over with the glue when pressure was applied. So, after it dried, I used an X-ACTO knife and trimmed off the glue spill-over. I had to touch up a couple areas with a small paintbrush afterward. I let it dry again
It's like watching paint dry...
Okay, I'm done!!!
But wait, something's missing...
Oh right! I need to put the silhouettes of Tinkerbell and Peter Pan at the top!
I traced out the silhouettes using the stencils I made earlier. Then, I went over the shapes with my black Sharpie paint pen. I also added some accents to Tick-Tock's tail. Per my wife, it looked like "some kind of sea monster" before I fixed it...
Gee thanks Hun!
After letting the paint dry one last time, I moved on to poly!
I went with a high gloss spray-on poly for this one. I used the high gloss to give it a nice pop and sheen! This dried pretty quickly. Then, I added (2) D-ring hangers on the back so it can be safely hung wherever Mom and Dad-to-be want!
And Voila! She's done!
It came out really nice! I think it's going to look great his nursery!
I love doing projects like these for kids. I had such a great time making this one because it's for a little baby, and hopefully it'll be something that he will treasure for a very long time! These two Disney lovers won't be able to handle it!
Congratulations Tana and Andy on your Baby Hook!
-Kevin
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