Last week I had posted a little insight to our personal life and the handmade sign that turned into a house remodel. You could say I tend to get ahead of myself at times and I have to keep busy or I’ll go stir crazy. Next week I will share more about our home project but I have a few things to wrap up this week.

A couple weeks ago I was scrolling Pinterest and beautiful handmade signs were filling my feed. I started thinking how awesome a gather sign would look in our dining area so I set out on a search to find one. However, the more research I did, I realized that the larger signs were expensive. (For the record, I love supporting small business but an extra $300 was not in our budget.) The creative inside of me thought “I bet I could do this” so I gathered up a list of supplies and drove over to Home Depot.

List of Supplies:

60″ x 20″ piece of 1/4 sanded plywood

0.75″ x 0.75″ wood trim – you will need 2 pieces cut to 60″ and 2 pieces cut to 18.5 (If you are going to make your sign a different size, just don’t forget to add or subtract 1.5 inches from the wood trim on each side of the sign or the border won’t fit together.)

Kilz 2 latex primer

Behr white paint (I bought the sample size)

Flat black paint (I bought an 8 oz can and it was more than enough, you could also use black craft paint)

pencil

small paint brush for lettering

Minwax wood stain in dark walnut

liquid nails (buy the clear version!)

When I got home I started by priming my board and staining the wood pieces. Once my primer was dry I applied one coat of white paint on the wood and let that dry over night.

The next morning I used liquid nails to adhere the wood trim to the edges of the board and let that dry for most of the day. I had no idea that my wood trim would not lay flat on my board and it was slightly raised off the board in places so I used soda cans along the corners to help hold it down. This may sound ridiculous but it worked great! I have since bought clamps because I’ve made a few other things since then but if you don’t have clamps and your budget is small, use cans or something else to weigh it down. Just make sure its nothing that will ruin your white wood! Also, when applying liquid nails, don’t use a ton of it. I put more than I needed in some places and it leaked out onto my board. It does scape off easy (it’s similar to hot glue) but to prevent extra work just use a small amount. Wondering why I used liquid nails instead of wood glue? Because liquid nails would hold longer in time and I was applying it to painted and stained wood. My new friends at Home Depot said the wood glue wouldn’t adhere as well.

Okay, after the sign was painted and the wood trim was on I just stared at it, completely terrified to write across the beautiful white board and ruin it. I had big plans to create my own stencil and make the lettering easy but I quickly realized that no stencil was going to be big enough. So I sat and stared at it some more and decided I was going to try writing it myself. Whats the worst that could happen? I would have to paint it white again? I had plenty of white paint leftover so I didnt have an excuse. I started lettering with a pencil and wrote very lightly before using paint. Don’t think for a second that I got it on the first try. There was a lot of erasing and touch ups with paint but I’m happy with how it turned out. If you’re still thinking “Kirsten, there is no way I could write that out myself.” I want you to find lettering that you love and try to mimic it. Keep trying and don’t give up! I had to walk away and go back to mine several times before I was happy. Or you can create your own stencil. The only issue I ran into with this was that I couldn’t print it on big enough paper but if your sign is smaller than mine, you shouldn’t have a problem!

Here are links to some tutorials on creating your own stencil:

Creating a stencil with a silhouette

Transfer paper and ball point pen methods

I couldn’t find the link but there is another blogger who prints her letters on cardstock paper and uses an exacto knife to cut the stencil out.

I’d love to help you so if I left you with any questions, just ask below or send me an email hello@kirstenbarbara.com

Good luck!

Kirsten

P.S. Next week I’ll be including behind the scenes access to our house project and what I learned during our major redecorating. If you’re not already signed up for the newsletter, don’t miss your chance!