This was done with MinWax Barn Red undercoat, then a layer of vinyl stencils provided by VinylAlKimy here in NC. I then over-stained with THREE coats of MinWax TruBlack. The next day, I spent three hours picking loose the vinyls. This design was found SOMEWHERE online, no idea where, and was PUBLIC DOMAIN, thank you very friggin much!
after a good thirty minutes scraping the binding, the end result was quite pleasing--at least to me.