Wood Sign Tutorial

Three or so years ago I started making reclaimed wood signs and fell in love! I love using saws and almost all of my clothes have paint stains... can you relate? I originally followed a tutorial I found on Homespun Happenings. Here are a couple of the signs I have made, followed by the tutorial and then more signs! I use mostly reclaimed wood, salvaged wood siding, fence posts...mostly stuff found on Craigslist in the free section.

All of the above signs were done using the following tutorial for the sign below:

I started by covering a sanded board slightly and unevenly with paint or stain. Don't strive for perfection with this part as you will most likely distress it even more in the later stages.

Then I printed the wording to fit the dimensions of the board.  I just printed one or two words per paper and then cut them out. For larger images I use Publisher and use the tile printing option. After it prints on multiple 8X11 pages, I cut and tape them together for larger signs. I forgot to take pictures of the next couple stages so I am going to use the ones from Homespun Happenings! 

I originally followed the instructions to cover the back of the printed words with pencil and then tape them (pencil colored side down) onto the wood and tape them into place. After a few signs I realized I prefer to place carbon paper between the paper and the wood and trace the words onto the wood instead of covering with pencil.

Once it is taped in place, I traced the words with a pen and the pencil lead or carbon transferred onto the wood providing the outline of the words.

Here is mine:

After you have the outline, you can choose to color in the words with either paint or Sharpie marker.  I just used a Sharpie and I loved how easy it was!

As a finishing touch, you can use sand paper to rough up the lettering to make it look more vintage. Here is my finished product! (Sorry for not cropping my feet out of the picture!)

Here are more pictures of signs I have made. Some of these I replicated from other images to hang in my home, others I designed the graphics myself or had my sweet sister help with! Bear with me, the pictures below were pulled from my instagram @hannahpryorgarcia #ggcustomdesign