Educational Decree -> for all Harry Potter Fans!

Have I got any Harry Potter fans in the house??
We have a really good friend who is 13, and she is way into Harry Potter. For her Bat Mitzvah, we got her "Dumbledore's Wand", and she was ecstatic! She said it was the best gift she got :) (Not bad for our first Bat Mitzvah gift ever!)

Well, for Hanukkah we wanted to give her something else Harry related - and for some reason I got it in my head to make one of these Educational Decree Signs (Actually, they have these for sale on various websites, which is probably why I thought it would be cool)...
These are the things that Dolores Umbridge puts up all over school in book 5 with ridiculous rules on them. Here's a picture of one from the movie:

And tell me, what avid Harry Potter fan wouldn't want one of these in their room?!  :)

I had a wooden frame that I had purchased on sale a while back (they are available at the craft store, and are great for painting and woodburning too)...

I only took a picture after I had started staining it, but you can see the shape at least.

On the bottom of the frame a piece of wood is nailed and glued so that it juts out a little bit to create a half inch ledge.

The top of the picture frame looks a bit like a house, as my daughter says. I used a piece of melamine board across the back to hold the "house shape" together. It looked just like this:

Each piece was nailed and glued onto that melamine board: the picture frame, the triangular shape, and the "roof" pieces - so that they were all held together....

 By the way, I cut all that wood with my mitre saw.  I am still in love :)

Here it is all stained.  I also glued a little lock onto the side.  In the movie the lock is there because it protects the "decree" behind glass.  I just found this little lock in the jewelry section of the craft store and thought it added to the charm of the sign. 

Then, I created a few different "Proclamations" in Word. 

Our friend was born in 1998, so all the decree's I made were "No. 98".

I also created a white board version!
I cut the black letters with my Silhouette and used some adhesive white board material (looks and feels like vinyl).  So now she has a bunch of choices - she can write her own decrees, or use some of the ones I made for her on printed paper. 

I was so excited to give it to her, and man was she surprised!!  I think she loves it, and I am so pleased with the way it turned out.