We have all seen those signs with clever sayings in the stores, and some of us (ahem, me...) cringe at the price tag. Well, do you have a piece of wood laying around? Have a bottle of paint? Then, here is a simple tutorial for making one of those professional signs. I made this one for my mom, who found a sign with this funny saying on it at a store, but when she went back to buy it, they had already sold it and she had been struggling to find it. So, I decided to make her the sign. I didn't really spend money on this project since I already had the bottle of paint and my piece of wood was from my headboard bench project (see blog post about that). It was a chunk that we took out of the middle of the footboard. Anyways, read on if you are interested in making a nifty sign!
Materials:
Piece of wood, whatever size/shape you need.
Paint. I used acrylic for the dark red color.
Sandpaper (optional)
Pencil
Computer/printer (optional--helps get the letters look professional if you have crappy handwriting)
First, paint your piece of wood if it isn't already painted, or leave it as raw wood if that is what you want. Clean it from debris. You will need to type up your saying and print it out, making sure the font is large enough and looks right when you lay it all out. It might take a few tries to get it right. My tip: SPELL CHECK! I made this mistake on a different sign and had to re-do part...woops. Once you get the size of the font you like, print it out, lay it out on the piece of wood.
Next, flip your words/pieces of paper over and shade with a pencil until the letters are completely covered in lead. See picture.
Tape your words/letters onto your piece of wood to make it stay in place. The next step is to outline each letter with your pencil. You will need to push very hard in order for it to make an imprint/stamp onto the wood. I usually trace the letters a few times just to be sure. See picture to see what I mean.
When you're done with this step, it is time to carefully paint the letters. Use a flat paint brush, or one that will work best for the size of your sign. After I painted it, I took a piece of sandpaper to the edges of the sign as well as where the words were, to give it a rustic look. You can put a finishing clear coat on your sign if you wish. This makes a great gift. You can glue pop can tabs to the back so you can hang the sign easily, or they do sell actual picture hooks. Be sure to use a heavy duty glue if your wood is heavy. Good luck!
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