DIY Wood Sign

A few months ago, I picked up a couple of old barn wood planks at an antique store.  As usual, I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do with them, although I knew it would be a wood sign of some sort.

Today, I made a very simple, personalized sign with one of them.  This is a very easy project!  Of course you can use any wood, old or new, to do this stenciled sign.

This board is weathered, battered and has old nail holes in it. It’s beautiful! 😀

I used Powerpoint to print this out. After finding the font and the size I wanted, I just cut out the letters to make a stencil.

I use to teach pre-school, can ya tell? Look at those nicely done cut-out letters. All my kids were very accomplished scissor users when they graduated pre-school.  Ha! 😉

I used a stencil brush and left over paint. Always pounce your brush on a paper towel before you begin. Less is more when stenciling!

I still need to place pictures in the frames, but finally this wall is complete.  Question… Why does 1995 looks so old and seem so long ago??  Was I even old enough to get married?  Wasn’t I just a baby?  1995 is like… last CENTURY!  Oh crap, I am old!

Yep, 1995, the year I was born married.  I still have one more board. What to do, what to do…

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DIY Hand Painted Wood Sign

Happy Friday!

Last weekend, a couple of my girl friends and I went to a big antique show.  It was so exciting!!  (I will have to do a blog on the crazy things I picked up.)  Towards the end of the day, we came across these cool wood doors.  Piles of them.  For only $2.00 each!  I picked up eight of them without having an idea what I was going to do with them.  (That happens a lot!)

One of my friends suggested making hand painted wood signs for the Holidays.  Here’s how I did it.

I printed out the words I wanted to use.  Not having tracing paper, I just took a regular pencil and scribbled on the back side of the letters.  Then I traced the outline of the letters and the pencil mark transferred to the wood door.  Woohoo!

Now the tricky part for me was filling in the letters.  I only had paint and a paint brush, reading glasses and one working eye!  Depth perception is not my strong point!  It took me FOREVER to paint the letters.  Either I thought I was touching the wood with my paint brush and wasn’t or I aimed for the outlines and completely missed.  If it wasn’t so frustrating, it would have been comical!  I would strongly suggest a paint pen.  I didn’t have one.  And two working eyes would be helpful too. 😉

I should mention that before I painted the letters, I gave the center section a coat of off-white chalk paint.  (I still didn’t know what design I was doing at this point.)  After the letters were painted on, I painted the rest of the front with the chalk paint.  Then I taped off diagonals lines with blue tape and painted them red.  After the red paint dried, I sanded everything to distress it a bit then I applied a light-colored wax to seal it and age the off-white paint a little more.

And here it is… This House Believes.  And this house also believes you can Do-It-Yourself.  Had to throw that in! 😉  Just FYI… Doors in many different shapes and sizes can be found at your local Habitat Restore.  Some used, some new, and they cost very little.

I’m going to put eye hooks in the top edge of the sign and use either ribbon or a small chain to hang it outside the front door.  Maybe embellish it a bit with Christmas picks or decorations.

This was really an easy project to do!  And the first Christmas thing I’ve done so far.  I love the Holidays!  Have you started to think about decorating for the Holidays yet?