I finally got back to work on some of my DIY Christmas presents this week. I know homemade gifts aren't really for everyone, but I personally am a sucker for giving and receiving anything homemade.

 

I have been really into making signs this year. We are working on redecorating our house and I think I could honestly find a sign I want to make for almost every room in our house... It's turning into quite the addiction. I even made a bloggy sign for my Package Pal... read all about that here.

 

 

I started with a scrap 1x6 pine board... nothing fancy, but it is a nice board and doesn't require any sanding to get started.

 

 

 

The color wax really takes no time to dry. I applied the paint about 5 minutes later. I used a white sating finish paint that I had bought in a sample size for just a few dollars. I didn't worry about making it perfect since I was making a distressed sign. (notice you can still see the dark color coming through the paint around the edges)

 

 

Once the paint was dry I used my little electric sander and sanded the ENTIRE board, even over the center where I wanted to paint. This gives the paint a smooth finish. It will not remove the paint from the entire board. The bare spots along the edges are where I pushed a little harder and sanded the same spot repeatedly. This doesn't have to perfect... after all a board wouldn't weather perfectly.

 

 

I then used plain old Microsoft Word and printed out the words I wanted to paint and taped them down into position.

 

I used a pen and traced the letters, pushing down hard enough to leave an impression in the wood.

 

 

 

I used regular acrylic paint to fill in the letters. This is time consuming but I found it gets easier the further along you get. When I was all finished painting this sign I added a LITTLE  more of the color wax to the entire sign. When I did this I started on the outer edges and rubbed it toward the center to avoid any extremely dark spots on the white paint. To finish it off I sprayed the entire sign with lacquer to help protect it.