Welcome Sign Tutorial and Welcome to Mulch and Paint!

Welcome to Mulch and Paint!

This is the day I have finally decided to hit “Publish” and begin a new adventure with this little blog called Mulch and Paint.  I am so happy you have stopped by to visit!

I have just finished a great DIY project and wanted to share it with you.  I made a Welcome sign for my front porch and finished just in time to decorate for Fall.  It was simple to make but I did learn a few things along the way and hope that the lessons I learned will make the process go a little smoother for you.

I began by sending Donnie to Lowe’s to choose a nice piece of wood.  He came home with a pre-cut 6’x2′ board that only needed a light sanding before starting.  I used an electric hand-held sander and whatever sanding paper I had.  Once the wood was prepped, a light dusting wass needed to clear the wood of all debris before staining.  I chose Minwax Pecan stain.  I wanted a lighter stain so that the black lettering would show up well.  You can apply several coats of the stain until you get the color you like.  Follow the directions on the can…I was staining and then sanding the wood after each coat.  Later, I read the can and it said sanding was not recommended between coats.  ( How dense can I be?)

 

 

To decide on the letters, I opened up a Word document on my computer and looked through the fonts until I found one that I liked.  I chose Century and then used the Bold typeset.  You will need to enlarge the letters so that they will fit properly on your piece of wood.  For mine, I had to enlarge the font to size 700!  When printing, go under Effects and choose Outline so you won’t waste so much ink.  Once you print the letters, you may have to draw in some of the letter that doesn’t print in full on your paper.  As you can see in my photo, I had to draw in some parts of the W and M.

 

After printing the letters on my printer, I measured each letter and tried to come up with a center point for each.  I then lined up the centers of each letter and taped the entire word “Welcome” together.

 

I had read several tutorials on how to make signs and a lot simply use a pencil to draw on the back of the letters and then trace over them.  I am a frugal gal and felt that this was the easiest and least expensive approach for me.  I had made signs in the past and used this method.  Unfortunately for me, I had also forgotten how long this process had taken and how frustrated I had gotten.  You have to darken the back in so much with the pencil and trace over the letters so hard that it seems worth the money (to me) to buy graphite paper.  After finishing my sign, I bought some graphite paper so I’d have it before my next sign project.  I got 20-9″x13″ sheets for $6.99 at Hobby Lobby and used my 40% off coupon.  It took me forever to find it in the store.  I found them in the art supply section where artist pencils are located and the individual markers are.

After tracing the letters, I went back over the pencil outline with a black permanent marker.  I am not a very good painter and felt that I had a better chance of getting the lines straight by using the marker first.  I then used black craft paint to fill in the rest of the letters.

 

Once everything looked good to me, I sprayed a few coats of a matte clear coat over the entire sign.  I have used gloss and semi-gloss on other projects but I wanted this one to look more like natural wood.  (You can switch things up depending on what look you’re going for.)  After the clear coat, you’re ready to showcase your creation!

 

My dad made me a wood frame for my front door and I also stained it with the Minwax Pecan stain to match the Welcome sign.  I made the wreath by using an old straw wreath and covering it with Spanish moss.  I took one hydrangea head that I found at Hobby Lobby that had a mix of wine and sage green and cut it apart.  I then glued it on the wreath along with berries and leaves I already had in my stash.

 

The colors I chose to use were wine, sage green and silver.  I bought some beautiful wine-colored mums and pansies and grouped those with a trailing vine called Silver Falls Dichondra.  I filled the groupings  in with ornamental cabbage and Dusty Miller.  Dusty Miller is another silvery-sage plant that I love.

 

I had a few plants left and was trying to figure out what to do with them.  I threw some of the Silver Falls in a small black metal jack o’ lantern and topped it with a pansy.  I remembered my hanging basket hanger and hung the jack o’ lantern on it.  The vine looked a little like hair trailing down.  I think he turned out pretty cute!

 

There is more Fall decor in my yard to show you all but I will save that for another day… I will tell you that all of my neighbors got together and came up with a central theme to decorate our yards for Fall.  Once all of those decorations are up I will share them with you!

Thanks again for stopping by,