When my dear nephew Rafi asked me to make a rustic welcome sign for his wedding in Israel (because the bride was dreaming of one) my first reaction was, hmmm, never done that maybe I'll just do it on the computer and make a mounted print? Except given the rustic wedding venue that might totally flop, yikes. Then I thought why not do a computer created decal and apply it to wood? A good option but ordering that decal, not so simple in my location, and potentially costly. Okay, then how about DIY decal sheets to print at home? An option but also needs to planned way ahead to account for shipping of those sheets. In the end, silly me I realized that designing the sign on the computer, and then transferring the design onto a piece of wood, and then painting it truly would be the best solution. And so, presenting to you my first ever DIY rustic welcome sign, with the artist's easel that I also happened to have, and which needed its own makeover as well.
Want to make one too, let's do it!
You'll Need:
- a piece of wood or wood veneer (that is what this is) mine is 50cm x 70cm, a good size (many signs like this use much darker wood, also an option)
- an easel of some kind
- tracing paper and tape
- carbon paper
- a pencil
- white pen
- a white paint pen
- an actual size print out of each word, in pieces, or a computer screen from which to trace, which is truly what I did!
- a gorgeous bouquet of flowers to complete the look
How To:
- First design the sign, using a nice italic font, keeping in mind that you can always add the swooshes as design elements as I did, and think about adding some small parenthesis or other elements to give the sign a bit of interest and fill space. The parenthesis are small but make a huge difference!
- If possible, do a mock-up on the computer and send it to the couple for their approval
- Now, you'll need to transfer the design to the piece of wood, which is done the old fashioned way with carbon paper. I traced my design onto tracing paper (deli paper actually) directly from my computer screen, not all that accurate, but it works and I have a large screen. You might choose to print the design on you printer, tiled, tape the pieces together to make a full size dummy of the sign, and then simply transfer by putting carbon paper under the print. Make sure to use tape to secure the paper/tracing paper. And do add some extra swooshes coming in from the sides or top, it really adds so much.
- Now time to paint! Use a while paint pen for the tiny letters, and even for the whole sign if you like. Or do the outline in white paint pen and then go in with white paint, likely a few layers.
- That is it, you can do it! And don't worry too much about perfection, it is supposed to look hand made! (That said the small m, bothers me, but working on myself to just let it be......though I will fix it if the sign gets used again!)
