Vintage Ice Cream

I love ice cream and I love vintage ice cream advertising.  I have shared a few of my vintage boxes with you already.  For today's project I used one of my less than pristine boxes for my inspiration because I loved the colors and the words.  Totally retro!  The way this evolved I think I could also call it the Rorschach sign.

I started with a cabinet door I found at the salvage yard.  It had nice moulding around the edges.  I sanded the door and painted it with heirloom white.  Then I used cardinal red acrylic paint and Victorian teal blue.  For the lettering I used stencils I had on hand.  Everything but the script was created by using inexpensive stencils from the craft store.  By inexpensive, I mean under $5.  However, after I stencil, I do go back in with a liner brush and go over the letters again to give it a more hand painted look.

 The inspiration box had snow flakes in the background behind the lettering and although I have several snowflake ornaments, the thought of dragging them out in July was just too daunting of a task so I used some sticky scrolly designs that I thought would work.  When I pulled them away, I had a huge mess left behind.

 Since I wanted an old looking sign, I just sanded back the mess and left the white paint underneath exposed and then put the printing on top.

To continue the aged look, I took a paint scraper and scraped the white edges so they would chip.   Below is my inspiration box.  I love this sign.  Even though it surely is not perfect, it reminds me of happy times and childhood laughter.  Ice cream is a special treat no matter what your age.  Thanks for taking a look. 

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