Wednesday, April 24, 2013

DIY Rustic Barnwood Sign

 
I made this rustic sign last month as a wedding gift for our friends.  I wanted to give it to them before the wedding, but they live kind of far away and we did not end up seeing them in time.  So I texted a picture to the bride, who loved it, and ended up bringing it to the reception site the day of the wedding for them to use with the rest of their decor.  I am really happy with how it turned out, and it was really quite simple:
 
1.  I used the monogram they had on their save-the-date card, scanned it, cropped it and enlarged it in Photoshop.  I also turned the image black and white to keep printing costs down.  My sign was 32x32", so I made my image size 28x28" and printed it exactly that size.
 
*I find that creating my oversize image to be the size I actually want on my sign is better than trying to enlarge a smaller image when printing to get the right size.  Yes, if it is a low quality image the lines get blurry, but in this case I really just needed a rough template and didn't need a perfect looking image
 
2.  I had some barnwood that a friend gave me, and I got my Dad to cut the pieces an even length, and he used some scrap wood to put two supports going vertically on the back.
 
3.  Then I cut out my oversize print and traced around the edges with chalk onto the wood.
 
4.  My Dad used a Dremel tool to carve the outline (the white part) into the wood.  This is not a necessary step, but I feel like it added some dimension to the finished product.
 
5.  I used sample size Behr latex paints from Home Depot to fill in the white and paint the blue.  I wanted it to be rustic, so it isn't perfect, and the blue is not a totally solid coat. 
 
If you don't have any barnwood available, there are some cool tutorials out there on how to age wood to give it more of a rustic feel:
 


 
 

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