life with laura: DIY: plywood sign.

3.25.2013

DIY: plywood sign.

a few months ago i painted the sign below for katie's room. she had leftover plywood from another project & decided to paint it yellow & i drew/painted the words. it was a great idea & one that i stole for this project.

a few weekends ago, court and i went to lowe's in search for some plywood. we got there and realized that 1. plywood is expensive and 2. we certainly didn't need a whole sheet. so we wandered back to the wood cutting area and found some employees who were loading up scrap pieces. we asked if we could have a piece & he agreed we could have it for $10. STEAL. so he cut it to the size we wanted, 34" x 34", and it was a done deal.

1. primer. i tried to just go ahead and paint it without primer and that didn't work. i also decided when i put the first bit of paint on there that i hated the color yellow we had picked. mom had some primer so i borrowed it, painted a thick coat, and let it dry overnight.

2. spray paint. we had originally bought the same kind i have always used, but on a trip to home depot, i picked up a can of rust oleum. i did an event for rust oleum a few months ago and i was so impressed by all their props/painted items they brought along, so i felt good about switching it up. i wasn't disappointed.

{$8 tarp from lowe's for projects}

3. distressing. speaking of the rust oleum event, they had shipped some distressing tools here but they arrived a few weeks after the event. my client said to toss them, so a few of us took a set home. if i had followed the instructions, i would have used the appropriate sandpaper before using the tools. but i didn't have any, and didn't want to make another trip, so i just went ahead with banging these things on the wood. really, i think that's all there is to it.

4. quote time. we ended up going with joshua 24:15. i free handed this with a pencil first and then used regular old acrylic white paint.

5. attaching the hardware. this is actually REALLY easy. i got a pack of d-rings and a pack of picture hangers. i measured equal distance for the d-rings and just drilled them in. i used the painter's tape trick to hang the picture hangers on the wall and the wood hooked right on.