My latest sign project began with a pile of letters I got half-off at Hobby Lobby, and a piece of wood that, in a former life, was a shelf in the closet we removed from our den. (When my wife and I redid the den, we decided a closet didn’t really make sense, so we took it out!) I never throw anything away that has value (at least to me), so I tucked it in the attic. I knew eventually I would use it for something. 😉
I painted the outer part of the wood with white craft paint. The old, yellowed look was achieved by adding a couple coats of acrylic polyurethane over the white. It tells you right on the can that it may cause yellowing. Let me tell you – it DOES cause yellowing, and that’s what I was hoping would happen. To add additional aging, I scuffed the edges with rough sandpaper.
Inside the white border I painted red – also with craft paint (from Wal-Mart I think). I covered that with polyurethane too, and the sign was WAY TOO RED! I added a couple coats of watered-down white paint over the red and that toned it down quite a bit.
The black trim that separates the red and white was left over from a back porch screen door project. I liked how it kind of ties everything together. I scuffed it up as well.
To age the letters, I roughed up the edges with sandpaper, then rubbed on a little brown and black paint.
I drilled holes in each corner and “aged” them with black and brown paint. I wanted them to look “rusty”. Like it was hung outside and over time the screws that were holding it rusted and left a stain.
This is a pretty big sign. It’s almost 5 feet long (57 inches) by 18 inches high. I couldn’t imagine what it would cost to buy a piece of lumber this size today (if you could even find it).
The sign is currently hanging on the wall in our booth at a local antique mall. UPDATE: The coffee sign was purchased in February, 2022.
I don’t know what my next project will be yet, but I did recently buy an old wooden lid to a blanket box that I think will make an awesome sign.
Until next time.