Used Fence Posts

Back when my sister lived in the state of Iowa, her gracious neighbor gifted her with old fence posts.  She was thrilled with their artistic promise, and even brought them back to SD when she moved.  Since her stuff is all stored where I live, I helped myself to a couple of them.  I cut two of them in half and nailed them to some scrap lumber.  I threw some green paint on them and stained them with some Minwax.  Here's what it looked like:

Yes, I'm using a Kodak EasyShare CD 40.  I'm sure you're impressed with the quality of my photography.  The camera was free with an Internet upgrade, and I haven't upgraded to a new camera yet.

It stayed like that for awhile.  I couldn't decide what to put on it.  Then I borrowed some words from the book of Ruth in the Bible and added a picture of a house that I found online.

I wasn't thrilled with the blue color of the house.  It didn't seem rustic enough.  So I painted and reshingled the house.  Also, my mom thought the quote was depressing, since it started with a negative (don't).  I repainted some of the words wicker white to detract from the first part of the quote.  I forgot to take photos, but really, with a camera like mine, can you blame me?

Here is what it looked like with a coat of stain on top of the paint.

Some fancy crafting sites use Ralph Lauren Smoke Glaze to age things, but I didn't have any and I haven't been able to find any at the stores I frequent.  So I used dark walnut Minwax, which was probably the better choice considering the deep rivulets (?) in the weathered wood.

Here's what it looked like after I wiped the stain off with scraps of an old bath towel.

Another angle:

And here it is on a wall:

I'm still not sure if I like it, but it was good practice.  As the stain continues to dry or soak in, I imagine it will look a little bit different.

What do you think?  Do you like the red house better than the blue?  Would you have left the words all one color?