The impetus for this sign was a Holiday Decorating Swap on the Cottage Living forums, where I knew my swap partner was a huge fan of the Wizard of Oz.

Being no stranger to the wonders of Oz myself, the phrase, one day “There’s No Place Like Home... For the Holidays” popped inside my head. And the rest of the project skipped down the Yellow Brick Road from there.

The plaque was a plain pine signboard I got at Michael’s. First I started sketching out the lettering, using my DVD as reference for the general style of WOZ lettering style. I made sure to leave room on both sides for some illustrations.

Then I tackled the ruby slippers, an open gift box and the lid, which I wanted to secure with a real ribbon for sort of a 3-D effect.

Toto in the Santa hat was next. (Having never drawn a terrier before, I was a little concerned he’d end up looking like a cat. But luck was apparently with me.)

Once the drawing was done, I used a woodburning pen with a pencil style tip to burn all of the imagery into the plaque.

Next I filled in all the background with a medium blue metallic Folk Art craft paint. The paint is for outdoors, so if it was put on a front door in place of a wreath it would run due to the elements.

To do the gold lettering I filled in the woodburnt words with a bright gold leaf paint.

The ruby slippers were done using a red metallic paint, then covered with two layers of a red ruby glitter paint. I’d initially tried it with the red ruby glitter paint alone, but it wasn’t enough o get the opaque red look-- it’s too clear, so the metallic red paint gave it the solidity it needed.

I painted the back and trim a solid gold.

Once the piece was entirely dry, I coated it with a couple of layers of a clear polyurethane sealant.

The last step was to add a ribbon hanger and add some ribbon to the packaging.