FIRST EVER TUTORIAL: Personalized Beach Sigh

Well... After a couple of technical difficulties (on my part) it's FINALLY here: my very first tutorial!!
So, I wanted to have something cute in my home with our family name but didn't want to do the typical vinyl lettering on the wall. I wanted something unique, something that would bring some texture and visual interest, and what better way to bring that then in the form of a personalized beach sign?!

First things first, though. No laughing at the painting job... I have to finish all of the edging, paint my ceiling and trim, and finish touching up some other holes on a couple of other walls. Anywhoo... It's a current work in progress.

The first step with this project is to cut some boards to a size that will work with your caption and wall. I used one 1x8 and two 1x4's. Then you need to paint them to the color of your choice. I chose the same cream that is in my kitchen. I antiqued the boards just a little bit so that the antiquing isn't too obvious, just a little bit worn looking. I think I might try to add very, very, light glaze to it sometime this week to bring out some of the different wood tones that I exposed.

Next you need to pick out a font style and size that will work well on your boards. My caption reads: "The Hills, est. 2000, with love" (I had another caption that I was going to put on the top ("Hill Family") which fit height-wise, but didn't fit length-wise on my board, hence the "Fa" and "y" lying there. Because the board that has our family name is larger I chose a 400 pt. font, the other boards had a 300 pt. font. Print out the caption and get your tape ready.

 

You will need to fold the paper over so that there is at least one layer underneath your caption (so that your paper doesn't rip--see next step).  Line up the text and tape it into place. 

After you tape your caption down you will then tract the outside of your text with a ball point pen hard enough to leave an indent on the board beneath.

Once you have the outlines of the phrase traced you can paint them the color of your choice. I used red to bring a little UMPH to my very blue and green room. This is JUST the place that I needed to start to bring that color out! (NOTE: I would very highly recommend using latex paint and not acrylic craft paint, which is more difficult to work with.)

After you have the caption painted on and it has dried you can drill holes large enough for rope to go through and either tie each section together or thread it through each hole with one long rope. I chose the later because it just seemed easier. I also looped each section after threading it through the drilled holes so that it was more secure. It's almost like a single knot at each section. You can also use ribbon, but I wanted a more textured, very slightly beach-y feel, so I used the rope.

Find the studs in your wall (or use some wall anchors) and screw in some eye hooks. Tie your entire art piece up on the secured eye hooks and, VWA-LA!!!! You're done!

The entire process took me about 4 hrs, not including drying time. I think that is longer than what average might be because I used the acrylic craft paint to paint on the caption, which is more difficult to work with then latex paint.

WELL, What do you think?? Let me know by leaving me a comment!!

Your slightly obsessed host,
Christi