I've been wanting to make one of these for a few years now, but I could never find a shutter that wasn't insanely expensive (in my opinion, anyway.) Every antique store I went to had the price hiked way up, and I was never able to get there in time to find them at those online garage sales. I came close a couple times, but no such luck. I even drove into Dallas to an architectural salvage place to look at shutters - they were, like, $40 for the small ones!! Seriously, y'all - I am CHEAP. I don't want to pay more than $5 for a shutter that I'm gonna have to work on.
Enter an estate sale - I. LOVE. ESTATE. SALES! I have found so many fun things for home at dirt cheap prices. If you've never been to one, you NEED to go. Check out EstateSales.Net and you can't type in your zip code for a list of nearby sales.
Anyway, my mom's friend was having an estate sale for her elderly mother, and knowing that I love going to these types of things, she told my mom about it in the hopes that I'd go. Go I did, and walking into the garage, I saw 2 saloon doors sitting in dust and cobwebs. They had weird fins on the top, but for the amazing price of $4 (!!!!), I couldn't pass it up! I got one and left one for another lucky estate saler ;)
It sat in my garage for a while because I have an insanely long queue of projects that I'm working on - it's pretty pathetic and depressing when I think about all I have to do. But I got the impetus I needed when I got our first Christmas card in the mail! Some people are so organized!
First things first - I HAD to cut that fin off. I couldn't find my painter's tape, so I used some carpet tape that happened to be lying around. I taped off the top of the shutter and used my jigsaw to cut off the fin. It wasn't an amazing cut - I'm DEFINITELY not a woodworker, but you do what you gotta do ;P I sanded it all down with a sanding sponge then took it off to the back yard to hose it off.
Once all the cobwebs were hosed off, I wiped it off and let it dry on some towels.
I didn't have any spray paint, so I just used my BIN 123 Primer and did 2 coats. There were a few drips, but I think that just adds to the character. I also only painted the front and sides, leaving the back the original color.
I found an ornament that we were given last year that was just perfect for the top, so I cut the string off and hot glued it to the top - er, bottom, as is the case with this. I hadn't cut very evenly, so I flipped it upside down, making sure the slats were facing up.
I slipped some glitter clothespins into the slats and it's all ready for me to clip my cards :D If you want to make your own clothespins, just brush some mod podge on the front, making sure to avoid the metal. Place some glitter on a piece of paper (I mixed silver and white) and place the clothespin glue-side-down into the glitter. Pick up and shake off the excess. You can spray it with spray sealer if you want, but I didn't want to do the extra step. They've held up pretty well so far.
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