I love me a good bakery sign. Or really just about any cute, vintage, black-and-white sign. But, I noticed that whenever I would find one of said signs, they would cost a lot more than I was willing to spend. So, when my husband tore down a bunch of shelves in our basement, resulting in lots of perfectly-sized slabs of wood, I decided to make a sign for myself. The process wasn't very complicated, but I had so much fun making it, so I wanted to share.
First, I started by staining the slab of wood with this white pickling stain, the same stuff we used in our beloved screen porch (we had a lot extra...). I used probably 2-3 coats to make the sign more and more white. I wanted to use the pickling stain instead of white paint, because I figured it would help with the vintage look, as pickling stain provides less coverage than paint would. And I used a foam brush to apply it.
Then, I began testing out different fonts and sizes on my computer, printing them off and cutting out the letters to see how they would fit on the sign. I just picked a simple Sans Serif font.
Then, I traced all of the letters onto my sign with pencil. I changed a few things about the letters, like making the downstrokes a little thicker.
Then, I used this paint pen to trace and fill in all of the pencil markings I made.
Once the paint was dry, I took some good ol' sand paper to the sign to distress it a bit.
And there ya have it. Simple and pretty. And wonderful. And perfect for my kitchen.
My husband attached some hangers on the back of it and put a nail in the wall above our sink, and hung it up!
I hope you try your hand at making your very own sign! It is so much fun!
Happy creating!
xo, Lauren
