Inspirational DIY Wood Signs with Farmhouse Look

Cut your stencils with your cutting machine following the appropriate settings for your material and making sure the sizes will fit inside the frames. I used pieces of Vinyl I already had. Use your stencil material if you already have them.

Once cut, use the weeding tool (the hook) to remove all the surroundings and any unnecessary pieces of vinyl.

Then cut a piece of transfer tape and place it over one of the stencil pieces. Use the scraper to make sure the vinyl sticks well and cut each stencil to be ready to transfer.

Set shtencils aside.

Firstly, sand each piece especially on the edges to get rid of imperfections, especially splinters.

Then regardless of what wood you will use, it’s always important to clean it off prior to painting. This will not only get rid of any loose dirt and splinters but will also provide a smoother surface to work with. All you need to do is clean it off with a brush, cloth, and sometimes even with a damp paper towel works perfectly.

Using a brush, dip the tips and apply rough strokes on the frame pieces. Forget about perfection. Just give each piece some harsh strokes. This is only to give the wood that weathered, aged look, so the more imperfect the better.

I started with white paint. Apply on all sides. Let it dry for a few minutes

Then Apply grey paint the same way and let it dry for a few hours. It’s important that the paint is really dry.

Once it’s dry, sand it well until the paint is barely kind of stains on the wood.

Clean each piece well.

Then it’s time to stain. I used a piece of cloth, dipped a small section, and then rub it along the wood. I like to damp the wood first and then remove the excess with another clean piece of cloth. You can repeat this step until you get the color you like.

Let them dy for a few hours.

Use a sealer or varnish to protect each piece. Let them dry for a few more hours or overnight.

Dilute your acrylic paint 50/50 with water and then paint your wood. Again no need for perfection since you will be painting again over it with white. This will give the dark look to your lettering.

Let them dry well and give them a sanding.

Clean the surface and give another paint coat. Again Give a good sanding and clean them well.

Decide where your lettering will be and then peel the transfer tape off, making sure that the vinyl accompanies it.

Place the transfer tape on the painted wood. I choose to place mine on the bottom center of the piece keeping in mind where the frame would be.

Use the scraper to firmly adhere the vinyl. If I’m not using stencil material (like in this case) I first stick it to a piece of fabric so it loses slightly the adherence, otherwise, when I remove peel it off it will leave some sticky things behind. We don’t want that.

Carefully peel the transfer tape off, leaving only the vinyl on the wood.

I used the dry brush technique for this step because I wanted to get a more rustic imperfect effect on the wood.

If you are not familiar with that technique, first put some paint on a paper plate and spread it out kinda thin, then take a dry brush and just get a tiny bit of paint on the end of the bristles.

Then just brush this along the wood and re-dip in the paint as necessary, but don’t get carried away because you want your brush to remain almost dry.

Repeat as many times as you need until you get the look you like. In my case, I wanted it almost white but still being able to see the wood imperfections.

Repeat on the other pieces. Let the wood signs dry completely for a few hours.

Then peel off carefully your stencil pieces. If you’re having a hard time pulling up small pieces of the vinyl use the hook tool for removing vinyl. Still, be careful not to damage the wood.

Then give it a sanding to smooth the surface and clean it well.

To make sure the frame would be strong enough to handle the curvy shape of the painted plywood, I first built each frame before attaching it to the wood signs.

Place the pieces on the wood sign and then apply wood glue.

With the help of clamps attach each corner of your frame.

Nail each corner together and move on to the next frame.

Then place your wood sign upside-down on the frame matching sideedges well and nail it to the frame.

Repeat with the other frames.

Lastly, install picture hangers on the back. I like these picture framing sawtooth hangers because they give you margins of error.

You are all done. Just hang them and make your space extra pretty and special.