DIY: Wood Wedding Signs

DIY wood signs can add a great ambiance to a wedding - especially a beach wedding!

photo credit: Josiah Hassler Photography

what you need:

wood (the bride, Katrina, picked some up from her hometown beach)

paint

paintbrushes

printer (and a computer... and ink!)

acetone nail polish remover

metal utensils
newspaper to cover working surface

to start, decide what words and fonts you want to use
tip: we found non-cursive to be much easier unless you have a good free-hand painter

measure your wood to determine what size you should print

print your words BACKWARDS in a thick font

(here's a tutorial for flipping a text box in Word)

place your word(s) on the wood in your desired location and
tape them down so they don't move while you're working

look at that brilliant tape job!
(tip: encourage each other along the way to keep motivation strong)

choose one brush for your acetone

brush acetone over the letters one at a time
(tip: if you don't want to get high, wear a mask)
(obviously we didn't care about that)

after you coat a letter, take a metal utensil (spoon, wine stopper, etc.) and scrape over the letter

we found that getting the edges of the letter mattered most, which is also
why we did mainly block letters instead of cursive handwriting fonts

the ink should transfer onto the wood, but depending on the type of wood you have
it might not be very dark, which is why scraping the outline of the letter matters more

once all your letters are transferred, paint them!

though the letters will be there for you to trace, patience is still key

that's it!

photo credit: Josiah Hassler Photography                                           

we also made some signs on stone hearts, but the ink didn't transfer with this method
so we had to free-hand draw them (with a white, erasable pencil first!)

we also had a special guest this crafternoon: Katrina's cat, Fly!

he just loves being held like a baby