I saw this on Pinterest and really wanted to do one for Jeffrey. The wood I bought was rustic and at first I was going to sand it, stain it then paint. But with all the pics I thought I'd use for Jeffrey, I felt the rustic look might be best. So I only sanded down the really rough areas and skipped the staining. I only used one coat of acrylic paint. Let that dry and I really liked how it looked. So I continued on with my title -- "Memories". I used my Cricut to cut it out and used 2 coats of white acrylic paint. Let that dry, stapled my Jute/twine to the sides and even painted my little clothespins.