This adorable key hanger was the last thing I made with my mom. Her and I made it while she was here visiting at the end of July. I originally wanted to make it out of old fence boards, but we decided that would be too heavy for my walls, that are mostly plaster. So we went to JoAnn’s.
My mom helped me design it on a shelf at the store. We got all the pieces, paint, and letters there. Then we got the hooks at a nearby Ace Hardware.

We made it out of some different thicknesses of the basswood sheets from Joann’s. I don’t know the measurements any more, but its 3 thinner ones, on top of  one somewhat thicker one that we cut in half. We screwed the three boards to the cut pieces to make the sign. I screwed it together after it was painted, but prior to gluing the letters and “Welcome” on.

I mixed up this particular shade of gray. My mom showed me how to white-wash the wood to give it that aged look. I actually mixed most of the colors for the words too, as the colors ended up a bit darker then I wanted so I lightened them up with a little mix of white. We used just basic wood glue to glue everything on once we had the sign screwed together. The last step we drilled really thin holes, and spun the wire through to make the hanging loops.

I absolutely love how it came out, and it is extremely special to me since it was the last thing my mom helped me make. It was such a fun day, and such good memories with her, shortly before she passed away.