Give Me a Sign

A long time ago in a land far from here I did a project. Okay, so it wasn't that long ago and it wasn't done anywhere but I did indeed do a project. It's one that I didn't seem to do a post on at the time, which is good because it definitely wouldn't have been worth it, but it is something that I have been thinking about since I did it since I first made them back in February of last year. So that's a year of something being on my mind - let me rephase, that's a year of something useless taking up space in my mind.

But thanks to my friend, Pinterest, I have now freed my mind of something so pointless.

I first came up with this idea to do this - well I can't remember exactly where now - but somewhere online (before pinterest) and I thought I could do it. But as it turned out, I really couldn't. Or at least not do it as well as they did. Whereever it is that I saw these vintage signs for the first time, they looks a heck of a lot better than what I created. Well, I guess I might as well show you. Don't laugh....too hard.

They were supposed to be more vintage looking and less like a piece of brown paper on a piece of white wood. And there is a purpose for what is written on them. Union Station = our first date. 70th Ave = the street where Rob grew up. Swope Park = where the zoo is and where we spent a good chuck of our dates for the first two years. 49th Terr = the street off where I grew up.

But they are definitely not as great as I had hoped. But this was also one of my first DIY projects and like we learned yesterday, If you don't succeed..., there is always a way to improve something. So guess what I did today? I improved.

I first got this idea from pinterest, duh, on how to fix this idea. So instead of paper made to look vintage-like, I just put the words straight on the wood. I thought, surely this is a crazy idea but I wanted to give it a try and see what would come from it.

But first we had to get those papers off, which were put on with mod podge so they were definitely on there pretty good. We just pulled the paper off mostly, but when that didn't get all of the paper off, we used water - see bucket below - to get it off. That seemed to work really well.

Once we got the paper off, it was sanded a bit from our previous attempts to get the paper off and some of the letters from the paper actually was on the wood, so I figured I needed to repaint.

The next step, which is something you can work on while the paint dries, is to get whatever it is you want printed on the signs. I decided to change ours from Union Station and Swope Park to Bufflehead Cove and Waterfall Park. Bufflehead Cove = where we stayed on our honeymoon = amazing. Waterfall Park = where Rob proposed. You can see how those are pretty special to us.

So you print out your signs on just plain paper but you want to flip it so when you are looking at the paper normally, the letters are backwards. Then you tape the paper on, like below, with the letters the right side up.

You get the words/paper wet. You don't want it soaking wet, but you definitely want it pretty wet. You can see where I used a paintbrush with water to get the paper wet.

Then you take a sharpie and with the lid on, you simple use the lid to go over the letters. You just push down on the letters with the sharpie, like you're coloring them in basically. It's hard to see in the picture below but I had already gone over them. If you click on it, and get a zoomed in picture you might be able to see where I went over them. You can definitely tell the letters are darker.

Then you just pull off the paper and like magic, you made your own sign! Pretty cool right? It turned out pretty awesome if I do say so myself. If you want the letters a little darker, you can go over them with diluted black paint and a brush but I like the look that I got, so I just left it.

And now here's the wall. Much improvement. Definitely not a piece of paper anymore. It was so easy. Easier than I would have ever guessed. And it worked so much better than I thought - definitely better than Rob thought.

I guess I'm just on a project high right now. Be looking out for another bigger project that we have been working. It's that big that Rob has even had to help me on this. But for now, I hope you enjoy the signs and heck maybe go try them yourself. It's easy and vintageique.