I needed to create a Porch Sign for a gift to surprise a dear friend. I decided to grab this sign from Michaels Crafts with the Iron Stand on the back to display with ease.
There were a few metal pieces on it creating a 3-D look, so I grabbed my pliers and took them all off. (That was the easy part). I then grabbed some Black & White Paint I purchased at Michaels suitable for outdoor use and started painting over the lettering. Yikes, I have no idea what the heck they used for this lettering, but I am not kidding you, after THREE coats at an angle you could see the lettering through it. At this point, I sanded a whole section of the lettering and tried to sand it off. No go. Wouldn’t budge. Hubby and I ran to Lowe’s and grabbed some Kilz Primer and coated the whole thing and followed it with one coat of black outdoor paint. Botta BOOM! Botta BANG! Live and learn. Woulda saved a bunch of time had I known this!
I printed out the font I wanted on Cardstock, and painstakingly cut out each individual letter. (Sorry no pics…I had no idea I was going to blog on this). I laid them out spacing them as evenly as possible, and used a white pencil to trace them. I started out using the white paint with a small paint brush to paint the majority of each letter, and then used Sharpie Paint Pens to fine tune each letter.
Painted the back, did a little more fine tuning with paint markers, and Shazam!
I’m not going to lie. I love, love, love how this turned out! SURPRISED MYSELF! And my friend was tickled pink with it! I’m not sure I’d sell them in my store, based on the time it took to make it, even with by passing the extra painting. By and large a lot of people don’t understand how much time goes into something like this and time is always a factor. Plus mailing something like this out would be fun.
Have you done any sign painting? What’s your favorite type to design? Share pictures below….
