A Humongous Barn Wood Welcome Sign

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Hey there!  I know this might be a little late in the whole “It’s Fall Y’all”  decorating thing, what with Halloween being over, but the way I see it, fall isn’t over till the day after Thanksgiving so . . . . .

I wanted to share a few projects that I did to go along with my post about our Passionate Front Door.   Just click on the link  and you can see the before and after.

I am loving this huge “Welcome” sign that we made using some recycled barn wood.  This was a very easy project.

Supply List

A Board-old or new, doesn’t matter-mine was 58″ tall-

( You can buy a board at Home Depot and have them cut it to size)

Clorox Clean Up  (if its an old/dirty board)

Folk Art Home Decor Chalk Paint

Alphabet stencil (around 6 inches tall–I used my Cricut Explore  to make mine)

Cricut Self-Adhesive Vinyl

Cricut Transfer Tape

Minwax Polycrilic Outdoor Sealer

 It started with a dirty, nasty piece of  old barn wood, so I gave it a good scrubbing first. I used a scrub brush and a couple of capfuls of Clorox Clean-Up in water.   Rinsed with a hose and let it dry.

Then I pulled out my Folk Art Home Decor Chalk Paint in black and gave it a quick coat.  I wasn’t super careful with it, I  wanted some of the barn red color that the board was originally painted to come through.   If you are using a new board you can paint it red first and after it’s dry, paint it black and when you distress it the red will come through.

While that was drying, I went inside to my trusty Cricut Explore machine and made my stencils of the letters in the word “Welcome”.  I used Cricut self adhesive vinyl for my stencil.  I   You can read how I make a stencil in my Pallet Farmer’s Market Sign post (just click on the green text).  To determine the size I measured the board length and divided by 7 (the number of letter in Welcome)  then I adjusted the size of the letters  down a little so there was space at the top and bottom of the sign.

Practice placement of letters before I applied the transfer tape

Next step is to place your stencils.  Now, here is a lesson I learned.  Be sure to use transfer tape.   If you don’t, when you peel the back off the vinyl your letters will stretch out of shape and you will wind up trashing them and starting over!  You can reference the highligPallet Farmer’s Market sign post  to see you how.    I learned the hard way.  Apply the transfer tape to the face of your stencil.  Peel the back off the vinyl letter and apply your stencil to the board one letter at a time.  If your using a traditional stencil tape it to the board.  The next step works really well for Cricut made stencils.  Take your background color (black in this case) and paint over the edges of your stencils (see example here).  This seals the stencil edges for a clean line with no bleeding.  Then fill in with whatever color paint you want your letters to be.  I used white.

Make sure you paint is good and dry (I waited till the next day), take some sandpaper and roughed up the surface of the sign to make it look distressed.  I sealed with Minwax Polycrilic -two coats, making sure to do the front, back and especially the edges.

Don’t you just love it!

The next project was to make a new House Number Sign.  I wasn’t planning to, but when I took down the house numbers to move them a bit I dropped them.  Then I realized that all the paint was peeling off and I decided to just make new.

At a recent trip to Hobby Lobby, I purchased a small tin plaque that was already painted black.  It was around $7, but I had a 50% off coupon so it cost $3.50!  I really didn’t have a plan for this when I bought it, but it sure came in handy for this project.

 Again, I cut the house numbers using my Cricut Explore–I have to say this little machine is one of the best investments I have ever made.  Applied transfer paper, and placed it on the sign.

I then painted two coats of the Minwax Polycrilic to seal and protect from the elements and when dry, hung it on the house!  Done.  This is what our entrance looked like before:

This is now–you can see how we transformed our door with Modern Master Never Fade Front door paint here.

If questions about any of these projects please leave a comment below, Or just let me know what you think.  I would love to hear from you.

Be Well,

Karen

Check out the newest machine in the Cricut Line-up!

Pallet Farmers Market Sign

The Nested Design Company

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.  Click “here” to read my full disclosure policy.

The post “A Humongous Barn Wood Welcome Sign” was first seen on The Nested Design Company and was written by Karen Ploransky.