How to Make an “Old” Sign

Today I am over at Life Your Way sharing ideas for how to use old doors.  Old doors make me happy.  One of my faves is this door we bolted to a tree at the end of our driveway.

I thought I’d show you how I painted the sign hanging on the door.  Since we live in the country, we needed a big, bold address sign.  I need the delivery men to find us so he can deliver the many important packages without any trouble.  All of those Legos and cans of spray paint….we don’t want those to get lost, now do we?

So I dug through my wood pile and found a worn scrap and just used it the way it was.  No cutting, no nothin’.

Then I printed some big numbers from a font that I like.  It’s an odd, scratchy looking font, but I liked the shape so I went with it.  I got out some carbon paper.  Remember carbon paper?  I can remember putting a piece of carbon paper between 2 pieces of typing paper and rolling it through the typewriter so I’d have 2 copies.

Good times.

Ok back to the sign…..I traced around the printed letter with a stylus (but you could use anything) and the carbon paper left a nice line on the wood for me to paint.  I just used a small, flat brush and outlined the letters with black craft paint.  Then I filled them in…nothing to it.

I didn’t try to fill them is completely.  I wanted it to look worn and rough.

Then I decided the numbers needed a little pop, so I got out the white craft paint and added a bit of shadow.  I guess gray would have been shadow, but I used white.  Oh well…I like to live life to the fullest.

The trick is just painting the “shadow” along 2 sides.  I chose the right and the bottom sides of the letters, but you could also do top/left.  Then you paint a line along all of those sides you chose.  It’s a small thing, but it adds a nice dimension.

Oh yeah, I hand painted some scrolly thing-a-ma-bobs in the upper corners.  Then I gave the whole thing a light sanding.

And we’re done.  Drill a couple of holes and tie it to an old door.  Instant yard charm.

It was a great quick project to work on while I watched a movie with the kids.  It only took me about half an hour and that was with distractions, bathroom breaks, stopping to take pictures and Levi asking if he could eat my popcorn.

I hope you’ll pop on over to Life Your Way and check out my other ideas for using old doors!