It’s my favorite season! I love everything about fall, and I always look forward to decorating the house. One thing I’ve been really loving lately is wooden signs, so I knew I wanted to create one to incorporate into my fall decor. Chelsea has been doing a lot of woodworking lately, so I got her to help me with this project.
First step was to gather the wood pieces. Luckily, Chelsea has a lot of scrap wood on hand, so I looked through the pile and pulled out the pieces for this project. I opted for a 12-inch piece of 1×6 for the main part of the sign, and 1×2 pieces for the border.
Chelsea did the cutting using her miter saw, and I got to work painting the pieces. I painted the main piece white and stained the frame pieces. After a few coats of white paint, and letting all pieces dry overnight, it was time to start on the words for the sign.
I decided to try out transfer paper for the word art portion of this project. I’ve never used transfer paper, but I’m so glad I tried it, and I’ll definitely be using it in the future. The basic concept is that you can trace a design onto your project piece, then fill it in with paint. It worked great!
I freehanded the saying I wanted to draw onto a piece of notebook paper, but you could totally print something out, then use the transfer paper to trace it. After I was happy with my freehand words, I cut each out and played around with placement. Then, I cut out pieces of transfer paper to match the size of my words, and traced each word onto the wood piece.
Once I had both words traced, I filled them in with my copper paint pen.
The final step was to add the frame! We first tried using wood glue and a clamp, but quickly realized that wasn’t going to hold tight enough, so we used nails to secure the frame to the wood piece and to each other. The wood glue was still helpful in securing the piece overall, but the nails really hold it together. And that was it!
I definitely want to make more signs, and I think next time, I will use a flatter piece of wood for the sign, and I’d add the frame on top of the sign rather than around it to get a more solid and lighter weight piece. Check back tomorrow for a fun fall recipe!
Party on!
JW
Looks great!