Wood Signs Hand Painted To Look Vintage/Weathered

I love, love, love to paint signs! I think they are a great way to show off your personality. However, I'm not about to pay what stores want for a cute sign that I know is marked WAY up! About a year ago, I decided to start painting my own to display in my home. Yes, it takes time BUT if I can save a couple bucks, or in this instance, $40...I'm going to give it a go.

I started out painting just solid colored signs and stenciling on sayings and words. After awhile, this can get pretty boring so last week I decided to experiment and I have to say...I LOVE the results. Who knew that combining two completely different colors would look so cool!

So...here is how I did it for those of you DIY'ers out there!

I started out with just a plain board. I buy them in the 12 foot lengths and cut them to size. You can get a board at your hardware store for about $3.00. Luckily, my fiance has a longbox truck so I can load it up!

After I cut them to length, I sand them down. Sometimes you get some splintered edges and it can be a paint to try and paint and then sand afterwards. After sanding, I wipe the board down with a rag to get all of the sawdust off. Then...I pick my colors!

My favorite combination of colors is brick red and pool green. I do 2 coats of brick red as the undercoat. It looks best to do the darker color as the undercoat. For this how-to I used terra cotta for the undercoat and spanish olive for the top coat.

After the undercoat has dried, you're ready for the top coat. You do NOT need to apply this like you do the undercoat. The neat thing is, you don't have to cover the entire board. The thinner the coat, the less sanding you need to do. I like to leave some streaks on the edges of the boards. And each one looks different! Have fun with it.

After the top coat has dried, I stencil on my phrase or wording. I use my Cricut for this. Most people use the letters/shapes that they cut out for their projects but I use the negative and the center of the letters to stencil. I spray a light adhesive on the back side so that it sticks to the board and paint doesn't get between the stencil and the board but it also doesn't peel the paint off of the board.

After the stenciling has dried, I sanded the entire board down. I am really into the weathered look right now so I go to town with the hand sander! But it's entirely to your preference. After sanding the board, I wipe it down again with a rag. The last step is sealing the boards. Acrylic paint scuffs easily so I find sealing them takes this risk out of the equation. I use Minwax Clear Coat Satin Sealer in an aerosol can. It's the easiest to control when deciding how thick of a coat you would like.

Taa-Daa! A super cute and inexpensive sign. Made by you which makes it 100x better! Here are some that I've done in the day or so. Enjoy and Happy Wednesday!