Sunday, October 19, 2014

How to Create a Wooden Sign from Scraps


What do you do when life gives you a pile of wooden sticks?

Create something with it!

My husband had a large pile of oak stick scraps leftover from his beautiful coffered ceiling project. He was about to throw this out to be burned when I quickly snatched these beauties. All sorts of ideas ran through my head on what I could do with these. I settled on using them to make a sign for our basement.


After deciding the dimensions for the sign, my husband and son cut the pieces a variety of lengths for an interesting layout.


Remember to measure twice and cut once!



Each row was then marked with what row it belonged to. This avoided having a puzzle to put together later.


We purchased a piece of plywood and cut it a little bit smaller than the dimensions I wanted. The plywood is just support for the oak strips. The strips will extend out a bit past the plywood so it doesn't show.
We sorted the pieces by their number and glued them down to the plywood.


Ta-da!  After letting the glue dry thoroughly, we took it downstairs to the saw to even out the sides.


Using an orbital sander, all the edges and the top was sanded smooth.


I forgot to take pictures of the staining and varnishing, but once that was done it was time for the writing!
I used photoshop to design the words and choose the fonts. I printed the words out using blockposters.com to get the huge size that I would need. Using white transfer paper between the wood and the printout, I traced the letters onto the wood. Then using a new fine paintbrush, the letters were carefully painted.


My wonderful husband attached some hooks on the back and hung it up for me!
I love it!!!


What scraps do you have laying around that you could make something beautiful from?

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