The Country Band Scrapbook Wall Art

I never really understood country music until my son was in a Country Band one summer that played at all the local city festivals around my state. So we went "on tour" with them for many Saturdays during the summer. It was tons of fun. We made it a point to sample at least 1 strange food item from a vendor booth at each festival.

I learned to appreciate country music and found the tunes to be very catchy!

I made this "tribute" to the summer fun we had "on tour" with the country band! It's a scrapbook on wood with a clear coating of Epoxy Resin - Envirotex lite.

My son is a guitarist. Here's a link to the new band they are currently in, Artie Hemphill and the Iron Horse Band.
Here's link to Drew Williams Music who was the keyboard / singer.

 This was an interesting project. I used a "tile board". It's a board with some raised square areas so when you glue photos on, they look like raised tile. Here's a link to someone that sells them on etsy. I got mine a a local craft store that used to carry them. Once I had all the photos I decoupaged them onto the wood, making sure to also cover the fronts of all the images with decoupage glue as well. Then I glued embellishments all over the board. Make sure to seal all paper with decoupage glue for the next step.

After everything was thoroughly dry...it takes a few days to dry completely, then I put the whole thing up on some wooded blocks to raise it from a table surface. On the table surface a put a cookie sheet I didn't care about covered in lots of tin foil and paper to catch the mess.

That's because you next pour epoxy resin over the whole thing. It will dribble over the sides and make a large mess, but luckily there is a cookie sheet and lots of paper underneath to absorb the mess. You have to make sure the entire surface is sealed with decopauge glue so you won't get any bubbles. If you see some bubbles surfacing, you can get a straw and lightly blow air through the straw towards the bubbled area. Since I had sealed my surface with decoupage glue first and it was completely dry, I didn't get any bubbles.

It turned out great and I love looking at it and remembering the fun summer we had touring with "the band". I saw many events at the various city fairs around the state while waiting for the band performance. I saw a chain-saw cutting competition, a show-dog jumping competition, a demolition derby, a rodeo, many prize animals, lots of exhibits of fair items like the worlds most organized jar of bottled carrots. There were prize-winning ribs, fried items on sticks, those cinnamon almonds that I loved. One time there was even a mighty micro-burst storm that demolished all the portable canopies at the fair and luckily the stage was a permanent structure so it all worked out as we all hung onto the canopy over the sound equipment. These are all things I would have never experienced if not for that summer of Americana.

I saw lots of great families enjoying the time together and grew very fond of this slice of Americana and have vowed to get a big buckle!

Maybe something like this:

Here's a link to a great tutorial that does a good job of explaining the basic process. It's for making coasters on tile, but the process is the same. Yee-haw!!!!