The other day I blogged about how I had a list of items I wanted but that I probably wouldn’t buy, because funds.
Well, I decided to get my thinking cap on because I really wanted to fill my kitchen space with that sign, Fresh Baked Pies. Only thing is, it’s over 150 CA to purchase. I bought these letters from Amazon a few months back, I think they were like 6.49 for a pack of 200 and I’ve used them to make Est & last name signs in the past.. so then I thought, why can’t I make a Fresh Baked Pies sign?!
This sign literally cost me under 10 dollars, and just took a bit of time. Since we are builders we had most of the items that we needed.. the only thing I purchased was a small roller to paint the wood white. If you’re new to DIY’s, here is a list of what you will need.
- 1 pine 1x8x6
- Small Paint Roller & Tray
- White Paint – Any Kind. Mine has a slight shine to it
- These Black Letters
- Polyurethane – This seals the letters onto the wood. Check to find a tester of poly so you don’t have to buy the entire can.
- Black Spray Paint or Paint
That’s it! Even if you had to buy everything on that list, it would cost under 30.00 You can guy into your nearest hardware store and purchase a tester of white paint and it is under 4 dollars!
So here’s the fresh baked pies sign I’m wanting to replicate. I just love the look of this sign. It’s so farmhousey and maybe it will urge me to bake a little more? Just jokes… this girl doesn’t bake! I will also be adding a frame around the sign like they have below, but this tutorial is just for the basic sign with no frame as the majority of people do not have a nail gun & cut down slivers of wood like we do. I also think that the sign below is metal. But I have never seen one in person, so I have no idea.
First step is to lay all your letters out to see how long your sign might be. I’m making my sign 6′ tall. Once your letters are laid out. Since it was 6′ in length, that is how long I bought my plank of wood – lucky me!
I then lightly sanded the board & ends. You can just use a piece of 80 grit sand paper. The key to this sign is rustic. So you don’t want to over finish it, then you would have a hard time distressing it.
After this, you want to take your black paint or spray paint, and spray the edges and all over the sign. It will only take 20 minutes to dry and then you can start on rolling your wood white! I didn’t take pictures for all of these steps as I feel it’s pretty self explanatory. But if you have any questions, pop them below and I will be sure to answer. Also, if you don’t have a roller you can use a brush too. but I don’t love brush strokes on my signs, so a small roller does a great job and it’s super quick too. I ended up doing two coats of paint.
Once the white paint is dry, you want to place your letters on the board. F R E S H B A K E D P I E S. Then you can start lightly varnishing the backs to stick them onto your sign. Heads up… you could also glue them to your sign but I didn’t want to buy anything extra, so I just used varnish. A bit messy, but does the job!
Once you’ve varnished all the backs to stick them on your sign, you want to varnish the entire sign. I would leave about 30 – 60 minutes between drying times. If you’re doing this project inside, the varnish will dry pretty quick, but if you’re doing it outside it might take a few hours or longer for the varnish to dry.
Once completely dry you want to distress – my favourite part! Lightly distress the edges, letters and sides. Soon enough, your sign will look pretty beat up & vintage.
This is how my sign turned out. I absolutely love it. I love filling my home up with farmhouse goodies made by hand. It’s fun, and you can change up your decor super easily with little to no cost.
Ignore the crappy photos. The light left my house at 3 PM! I told you.. I live in the darkest home, ever.
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