There are two expanses of brick wall on either side of our front door. I have tried a few different ways of breaking up the space and making it look more decorated, but since brick doesn’t play well with nails or 3M strips most of those attempts have failed. When I found wood stars at Target, I had the idea of grouping them together to create decorations that would fill one of those blank spaces. The star shape fits in well with the Americana look of our porch in the summer, but the color needed an update. I had a great time playing with chalk paint to make these distressed wooden Americana stars.

DISTRESSED WOODEN AMERICANA STARS

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE DISTRESSED WOOD STARS

The key to getting the distressed paint finish of these stars is to use chalk paint. Chalky paint dries extremely quickly. The short work time allows you to use multiple colors of paint with little downtime in between layers. Chalk paint also dries to a pretty matte finish, which is very appropriate for a distressed Americana project.

NOTE: I found these wooden stars at Target a few years back, so you likely won’t be able to find the exact same stars anymore. You can find other wooden stars in your local craft store or online.

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chalk paint
wood stars
sandpaper
paintbrush

HOW TO MAKE AMERICANA STARS

The stars I used had a light blue finish on them when I bought them from Target, but I really wanted them to match the other painted decorations on our front porch. For this star, I began by lightly sanding the blue finish down, then I added a coat of deep red chalk paint. After it dried, I sanded that paint down and applied a coat of white. I allowed that layer to dry, and then I sanded once again, making sure all three layers of paint were visible.

I repeated that process on this star with a light blue chalk paint followed by a medium blue paint.

Finally, this star was painted with the medium blue paint and the deep red chalk paint, then distressed the same way.

I added some nails to the wood trim near our porch ceiling and hung the stars from long lengths of twine. For $9 worth of wooden stars and some paint that I had on hand, I was able to add some one-of-a-kind, patriotic decor to our already Americana-themed front porch!