Nautical Sign {DIY}

One of my favorite type of projects --besides re-purposing furniture, is to make signs. Whether they are from new wood or pallets, I love to make them! There is something really unique and special about having meaningful signs around your house and they are even more meaningful when you make them yourself.  This particular sign was for my son's room, which I made to hang over his crib. I made it from new wood which I glued together, painted, and distressed. Before I get started with the steps I will say this,  if you are brand new to DIY.. this project will require some help to make for a few reasons...

1) You need to make sure you glue the wood together nice and tight because you DO NOT want it to fall apart.
2) It's not THAT light weight of a sign... wherever you hang it, you need to make sure you tightly tie the rope so it doesn't come undone.
3) Project fails are sometimes funny-- if you don't make this the right way and make it sturdy it might fall or break and the last thing you want is to damage your walls or have someone get hurt.

So, if you are new to DIY and you have never made anything big before, get some help. Ask your hubby or a friend to help you do it the right and safe way :) 

Now let's get started!!

I started off with 2 (12 ft) pieces of 1x4s that I had the guys at Home Depot cut into 4 foot pieces which gave me 6 pieces of wood to glue together. I used the same technique for gluing the wood as I did in my Pottery Barn Clock project. After the wood is glued, I used my electric sander to distress and wear out the ends a bit.

 I applied a thin layer of matte white paint.

After the white paint was dry, I slapped a thin layer of Midnight Blue and let it dry for 30 minutes.

I ran my sander over the board to distress it BUT I didn't really like the way it looked, I wanted more of the white to show instead of the wood color. So, using a clean piece of cloth I rubbed white paint where there was too much wood showing.

Here is the best part of this project! I didn't use fancy stencil cutters or expensive stencils... I printed my own letters and used graphite paper to transfer the tracings.

I got this trick from my friend Megan at Bourne Southern. She makes amazing and beautiful signs and she even has an Etsy Shop!

 

 I got my font from DaFont.com and used grey ink to print my letters (it uses less black ink to print). I then cut the words up and placed them where I wanted them to be, and used graphite paper to transfer the word to the board. 

 

Using black paint and a very thin paint brush I filled in the letters, after they were dry I gave them a light sand (using a 220 grit paper and my hand, no need for the electric sander)

Using a 1 inch woodboring spade drill bit I drilled 2 holes where I wanted the rope to be.

Using 5ft of 1 inch natural manila rope, I tied a tight knot on one end, then using the end that doesn't have the knot I pulled it through one hole, and poked it through the second hole and tied a tight knot.