Got a WELCOME sign on your front porch? Do this!

Hello again friends!

Our stay in place requirements have expired but I am not going out much yet. How about you? Most of my work (I am a Realtor) can be done from home so I do have the ability to stay close to home a little longer. While at home, I am continuing to try to make do with what I have and recycle, redo, refresh, update and simply use what I already have for my crafting and DIYs. Here’s another example…

Here’s my old Welcome sign that I made. I featured this sign as my first Mulch and Paint post and gave a tutorial on how I made it. Of course, Silhouette and Cricut were not used as much back then. Here’s a photo of the Welcome sign for my first blog:

Welcome Sign Tutoria-Fall front porch-pumpkins-mums-pansies

You can get the tutorial for the original sign HERE.

I still use the Welcome sign often when I am decorating the front porch. It usually sits at our side door under the carport.

As I was beginning to decorate for Memorial Day, I decided to flip the sign over and make a patriotic themed sign to go along with my decor. This was the most logical thing to do along with the most inexpensive. I am going to share with you how I made my sign but you can customize yours anyway you want.

There’s a lot of photos so I’ll try to keep my thoughts short and sweet.

Here’s a photo of the back of my sign. The rear. The posterior. The booty. The caboose. The bum. The patootie. The butt. (How am I doing keeping my comments brief?)

I lightly sanded the wood and put painter’s tape down the sides and top. I also taped off a small section at the top. You can see a small circle traced on the wood. This is an 8-inch circle used to help me choose where to position the painter’s tape.

I then painted the larger section white. I painted two coats.

I wanted to make red stripes going down the sign to represent the red and white lines on the American flag. I did not want the lines to be the same size so I used more painter’s tape to mark where I was going to paint red. (BTW-this was not easy. It was all good in my head but when I had to do math to figure it out, things were not good. Not good.)

I am still using the paint leftover from my front door! This is Sherwin Williams 6335 Fired Brick. I painted two coats of the red and then removed the painter’s tape. (There’s my measuring tape still smoking from all of that measuring and math I had to do earlier!)

I painted the top portion in two coats of Sherwin Williams 6230 Rainstorm. I love how this color has a denim look to it. Using my Cricut, I cut out an initial using the Typewriter font and made a stencil with contact paper. I painted the stencil black. I tried to center the stencil in the 8 inch circle that I made earlier. I pressed down on the circle when tracing it so that I could still see the lines after painting.

Using the Cricut again, I stenciled white stars around the initial. You can can pull the pattern I used for Design Space by clicking a link at the bottom of this tutuorial. If I had thought this through better, I probably would have placed the initial and the stars on the sign and stenciled them in unison. I was really winging it on this craft so I am sharing my mistakes to hopefully make it easier if you try it.

I used a make up sponge to stencil the white stars.

I wanted this sign to look more like a revolutionary flag during the Colonial days. My home is a Federal/Colonial-style home and I thought it would be most appropriate. I aged it slightly (and covered up the imperfections of my painting) by using a hand sander to distress it. I went up and down the sign going along the grain.

Looking at the photo above, you can see that once I peeled the painter’s tape the sides were still the original stain as the front. This helped to make my finished product look a little neater.

To finish off the sign, I sprayed Rustoleum Clear Matte spray to seal it.

Here’s the finished product!

A few flags sit inside my hanging basket.

I made this wreath using a metal sign as the center. It reads USA Established 1776. I think it goes along with my Colonial theme.

I put some larger flags in my Kimberly ferns at the front door.

I hope my Welcome sign transformation has inspired you to flip your sign over and create something new! Remember, it’s only paint and you can change it again tomorrow if you want. Experiment. Figure that dad-gum Cricut out! (I’m still trying! Really!)

That’s all for today!

As always, thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and visit Mulch and Paint! I always enjoy the company!