Wood Signage Tutorial

This tutorial is for a red, white, and blue “peace” wooden sign, however, the technique could be applied to any type of sign. For those of us not lucky enough to have a vinyl cutter of some kind, this is another option for making worded signs.

Start with a clean piece of wood:

{I said clean piece of wood, ignore the icky carpet!}

Then, I spray painted the wood white.

I probably did 3 more coats after this, because the knots in the wood were really accentuated. I eventually got out some acyrlic paint and a brush to fill in the spots that would not absorb the spray paint.

Then, I taped off the white to create stripes using red paint.

I painted with red acrylic paint, and then waited for about 45 minutes so the paint could dry. You don’t want the paint to be completely dry when you peel off the tape, having it be a little wet helps to keep from peeling up any paint.

This was the board with the tape all peeled off and completely dried. I wanted to add a word or phrase to the board and dabbled with a few, then I settled on “peace.” In order to paint the word on the board, I went a non-traditional route, but the type of route one would take who is cheap, and needing to finish it within a nap time. :)

Basically I used a pencil to outline the letters on to the board. Then I used a thin paintbrush to fill in the letters. Easy peasy :)

Disclaimer: No, I had never done this before. No, I do not paint often, and no I don’t have good handwriting. But apparently sometimes the stars align for miracles to happen.

And no, it’s not perfect. But the letters actually only took me 20 minutes, so I was happen with the result.

Here it is on my mantel.

I really do like the way that it turned out, and after doing it this time, I feel confident to try this fake method again. Be confident with your own handwriting ability, and remember- it’s just pencil. You can always erase and make corrections along the way. Even the paint was a little forgiving.

If you do decide to use this “technique” SHOW me! I’d love to see what you’ve come up with!

Happy Wednesday!