Easy DIY Hand Painted Wooden Signs

I've been going a bit wood sign crazy lately.

It started with this beauty I made when I was homesick for some NOLA charm in my Texas home.

....and it hasn't stopped. I've made Name signs for babies and even this custom
 Pottery Barn Knockoff for my friend Caron.
It hasn't stopped because they are so darn easy to make and you don't need to give me a really good excuse to go buy some wood from Home Depot.

So here is a quick tutorial so that you can make your own Custom Wooden Sign too.

Materials:

Design
Piece of Wood
Stain/paint
Pencil
Paintbrush & Acryllic paint
Sand paper (If you want to distress)

All of my signs (unless they are a custom commissioned piece) are 8"x25"

You can easily go to Lowe's or Home Depot and have them cut you a piece of wood that size. They don't carry them already cut so I go and get a six-foot board and have them trim them into four pieces. They are happy to do it so let them!

That's a sign for you, a sign for ya momma, a sign for a friend and an extra for you all for under $8.

At this point you can decide if you want to have a painted background for your sign or just stain it. I've done both and it's all about what look you are going for. You can paint from a can, spray paint, stain or even keep it natural. Your choice.

For this project I actually painted on a base coat of grey that I had a small pot of. I have a ton of tiny paint sample pots from trying to find house colors and I hate for them to go to waste. After a coat of gray I painted on a coat of white paint as I intend to distress the project at the end and want the gray to come through for a bit of an older look.

For the sign you'll need a design. I use a program called Pixlmater for all my design work. It was $15 but there are many free programs you can use if you just google it. I've used Pixlr.com before as well.

Create a new file to your board's dimensions so I made a file that was 8" high and 25" wide.

I than used this as my working space. Having the correct dimensions lets you know exactly how it will look and fit on your board.

I saw this design on Pinterest and it made me laugh so hard... because it's true... that I made a quick version for myself.

I print all my design images at Office Max and Office Depot. They have the printers to print large poster size and that works well with my 25" needs. I often use their 16" x 26" large format print in black and white for a wait for it... whopping $1.95. It's even cheaper if you get an 11"x17" it's $.25.

So once I have my design done I create another file that is 16" x 26" and drag my design into it.

This makes it easier for whoever is printing at the Office Max or Depot to actually print it correctly. You can also do two designs at once.

Sometimes they want to fit your design to page and blah blah... but if you bring it in on a flash drive to the correct printing size and say, "I need it that size, please don't touch it" it comes out perfect.

Once you have your freshly printed design at home you have two options depending on whether you painted your board or you stained it.

If you stained your board flip your image over and trace it hard with your pencil. Once that is done flip it back over, TAPE it to your board and trace all over again.

Once that is done flip it back over, TAPE it to your board and trace all over again.

The second trace will transfer the lead from the first trace onto the board and create a perfect 

"Paint in these areas" for you to follow.

If you used paint (and I'm talking mostly about spraypaint since it's a thicker paint or did two coats like I did) you can skip the first tracing step and go onto the second.

It may not work that way (cause some crafts want to be a pain and cause an extra step...) so make sure you are checking your tracing by lifting up one corner every once and a while
to make sure it is transferring. Nothing is more devastating than picking up the entire sheet to see you've missed a few letters... it's almost impossible to lay it back in the EXACT SAME spot. 

Trust me.

After that you get to paint!

I feel I am terrible at painting so I always take a piece of sand paper to the project after and rough it up a bit to hide my painting flaws.

Now you have your own custom wooden sign.

Go ahead... congratulate yourself. 

You are awesome.

God Bless & Much Love,

    Jessica 

This is Linked up at Someday Crafts, The DIY Dreamer, The Shady Porch, Savy Southern Style, Making Home Base & Southern Lovely.

Party @ The Happie Housie

Who are you?

Growing up we had great anti-drug commercials on TV.
Like, "This is your brain... and this is your brain on drugs," and they would fry an egg.

One memorable such commercial showed a broken ballerina and the announcer said,
"No one ever wants to be a Junkie when they grow up."

At that moment my naive six year old self proclaimed, "I will! I'll be a junkie!"

Oh the stories my parents have...

Yet, sometimes even younger than six we are already trying to figure out what we will be. What we will be known for. What we will be good at. What... will define us. Who we are...

I had the privilege of crashing another church's bible study awhile back.

I couldn't help it. The topic was one I desperately needed and as I sat and talked with these new ladies it soon became clear this was a common desperate need!

I am constantly being reminded that I am not finding my identity in Christ.
Every time I try and find my identity in being a wife... I always end up causing a fight or destroying something of my husband's like this.

When I try and find my identity in being a great mom... well... yea that only lasts for five minutes, if that and that is ALWAYS the day we end up needing to go to the Urgent Care for something.

I no longer ride on my Disney coattails though it is still a great conversation starter...

Who am I than? What am I good at? What am I known for?

Often these questions send me down a spiral of selfishness then depression. A common spiral that many people find themselves in. Often because something doesn't happen they think should have... like getting married at a certain age or having children. Perhaps that dream job that should have been handed to you after graduation or once I accomplish this so and so will love me...

On and on it seems to be the equation of if I do A than B will love me or C will prove how awesome I am.

Now these things in and of it self aren't wrong. It is not wrong to be loved, to get married, to have children or have a career. But none of them satisfy fully and if they get taken away....

We are heartbroken. We get lost.

Sadly, when we are lost we miss out on the big picture:

When we are calling out, "Who Am I?!"
God is yelling back, 

"You are Mine! You are Mine! You are Mine!" 

 What makes you special? What makes you unique?

God choose you out of millions lost.

He sent His son Christ to save you.

You are His. 

No one knew this more than the Apostle Paul.

 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—Phillipians 3:7-9

Before his epic conversion in Acts 9, Paul/Saul was a pretty big wig among the Pharasees.
He had made it his mission to bring down the "new church" and his voice was loud and made things happen.

Yet, when he encountered Christ he threw all of that away. All of the prestige, the accomplishments, the accolades from his fellow Jews, all that good breeding... Also people liking him. He went from being "popular" to enemy #1 in the eyes of the men he'd always tried to please.

When Paul encountered Truth he couldn't turn back.

He spent the rest of his life spreading that truth. He wrote letters to budding churches with invaluable advice... if he lived in our time he would probably be the King of the Christian Blogosphere. Though he accomplished much in Christ's name, had wisdom countless followed and had the right to tell anyone who said, "Oh you don't know what it means to suffer for Christ" to put a sock in it...

He counted it all as loss. 

To put that in perspective, Imagine this:

You just won an Oscar. Everyone loves you. You have best selling book deals, everyone wants you on their talk show. From your success you've earned millions to which you give plenty to charities. You top Forbes list. By the world's standards you... have made it.

Yet... you take all those accomplishments, all those accolades and instead of being known by them when someone asks you your name and something about you, all you tell them is:

I am a child of God.

That's basically what Paul did! No matter what accomplishment or praise or love we can get on this Earth for being the best or being popular... none of it is as special, as precious as being beloved by the King of Kings!

Today my friend if you are feeling like you aren't the cream of the crop.
You didn't get that job you wanted.
Your dreams aren't coming true in the way you thought.
Or you are the most successful person you know...

Remember that your greatest accomplishment you didn't have to do anything for:

God chose you as His Beloved.

To Him you are amazing, special, talented, hilarious, beautiful and all around awesome. And when God thinks that of you... who cares what anyone else says?

I praise you because, I am fearfully and wonderfully made!   

Psalm 139:14

Are we still going to have days where we get distracted by the world and what they think of us?
Of course we are. It's an everyday thing where we have to remind ourselves where our true value lies.

But God... he never tires of telling us -

Who am I?

"You are Mine! You are Mine! You are Mine!" 


God Bless and Much Love,

Jessica

DIY Pottery Barn Knockoff Brother & Sister Signs

I love getting an e-mail from a friend that has the words,

"Hey you think you can do this...?"

Or having a friend walk through my home and see something I've made and go,
"Ooo.. Make me that."


A few weeks ago one of my amazing friends Caron sent me an e-mail asking if I could pull off this beast:

They are from Pottery Barn and while stunning... cost a whopping $60 a piece  and are kind of hit and miss in actually describing your child.

She wanted them both to hang in her house for her amazing kiddos Jackson and Avery.
So, I went to work. 

I took Caron to Home Depot and we were going to pick up some already pre-cut boards. They are usually about 2" wide and 1" thick. Depending on what wood you get they range from $.98 to about $3.00 a piece.

Now if you are making one of these signs I would suggest just buying the pre-cut boards. They come in about 25-26" so that is usually perfect for a sign.

Since we were making two signs for Caron I went ahead and got a six foot board and had it cut down to size. I needed four boards for each sign so I had to get two 6' boards.

Home Depot lovingly  cut them down for me and I grabbed a small stick like board from the cubbies. It looks much like a yardstick. It's only an 1" wide and about as thick of a yard stick.

That piece I used to actually put the signs together.

She picked out her colors and I took the boards home and spray painted one side of them, even doing the sides of the board.

Once they were  fully dried (You should wait a day... I usually wait an hour, mess them up and have to do it again... darn my impatience) I put them together.

I took a hack saw and cut down my yardstick looking piece of wood so I'd have four pieces, two for each sign. Than I just took some finishing nails and nailed them on the back of the four wood pieces and VIOLA! Plank sign.

I've done another version of this as well with bigger slats between the wood that turned out pretty well. Check it out: DIY Distressed Outdoor Sign


Than I created the design. We worked on a custom design that actually highlighted things her children did. I had it printed and traced it on the boards.

The letters were tiny but they were all completed in the span of one Pixar Movie. (Cause that's how us mommies tell time now a days)

I distressed them a tiny bit but they looked stunning as they were.

A little hanging wire and these beauties were ready for their new home!

Here are the materials I used:

- 2 - 6' 2"x1" boards
- 1 - Thin finishing board (Don't know it's name but it looks like a yardstick. You could probably use a yardstick if you wanted too)
- Finishing Nails
- Spray paint
- Printed Design
- Pencil
- Tape
- Paint & Paintbrush
- Hanging Wire

And if you are curious how I got the design printed come back in a few days when I post a
Wooden Sign Tutorial.

It wasn't the easiest of projects because a can of spraypaint and I kept having a fight...   darn you blue spray paint. You will not be able to do it in an hour but  it was worth the extra time and effort.  I think she loves them and that makes me incredibly happy.

God Bless & Much Love,
    Jessica

  This is linked up at  504 Main, Tatertots & Jello, Your Home Based Mom, Be Different Act Normal,  Chic on a Shoestring, and Suburbs Mama.