DIY Vintage Equestrian Feed Sack

I never seem to be quick enough with the auctions on Ebay.  I always lose.  And it's so frustrating, right?  Not so long ago, I missed out on a couple of amazing feed sacks that I really really wanted.  Thought I had them, but lost in the last few seconds, literally.  I couldn't seem to find anymore like them anywhere so I just decided to try making them myself.  It took forever, mainly trying to figure out just the right font to use, and then cutting out all those letters.  But luckily, it's summer and sometimes it's pretty relaxing to sit and cut things out like when we were kids, right? 

Here's how I made them.....

To start, I washed and bleached a couple of pieces of dropcloth, dried them and laid them out flat to start stenciling on the words and art.  The fonts I used are available for free download on 1001freefonts.com.

The font I used for the TRAINERS' CHOICE sack was called Libel Suit.

The font used for the word OATS is called Steelfish.

And the font used for the words FOR RACEHORSES is also Steelfish. 

Fonts used for the JOCKEY OATS artwork is all Steelfish.

You can play around with the sizes.  I don't remember the font sizes that I used because I tried so many different sizes.  It really depends on the size of the piece you're going for.  Both my framed "sacks" are 22 x 28" so they would fit into a 22 x 28 inch sized poster frame that I picked up at Walmart.

The horse and jockey artwork is easy to find online, just google horse silhouettes.

After I had all my letters and artwork printed and cut out to use as stencils, I laid them on my dropcloth to determine their position.

To get just the right color, I used craft paint and mixed together 1 part Skyline with 2 parts Steel Gray.

Then I started stenciling it on lightly.  Make sure that you don't completely paint in the letters.  Otherwise it won't look aged and original, it will look like you painted on fabric.

I could have actually gone lighter here but this was my first experiment.  I stenciled the artwork on first and then did the words around it.  It seemed to be easier to get everything even that way.  And that's it!

I absolutely love how they turned out.

My hubby brought home this fantastic green piece in the photo above from a storage auction.  It was originally wood but the stain was in bad shape and the hardware was dated.  So, I replaced the hardware with something better, painted it this amazing shade of green, Valspar Homestead Resort Olive, and then distressed it with Minwax special walnut stain and wiped off.  I wish I had remembered to take a before photo so you could see the sorry shape it was in.  I am loving the pop of green color.

As you can see I've updated with pillows and the same curtains I added to our den.  The blue pillow fabric came from here.  The bird pillow I made by stenciling a bird silhouette onto green fabric that I already had.

My thoughtful hubby picked up that sweet old oar behind the couch at an auction.  It was in perfect condition and I think it's lovely.  :)

The green seed stock sack I actually did find on Etsy several months ago, so of course, I made a pillow out of it.  I'm crazy about that green color.

Also, see that vintagey looking record player on the bookshelf?  My hubby bought that for me because I absolutely love listening to old Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald albums.  Problem was, it was a color that I didn't care for, burgundy.  Can you paint those??  Well, I sure did!!  I taped off the dial in the center and just spray painted the whole thing white.  Love it!!

If you have anymore questions about the DIY sack and art, I'll answer them in the comment section!  :)