Crafts,  Yard Art

Turtle Lane Sign

Remember Teresa? Sure you do, she is the pottery kiln lady. A couple of weekends ago we delivered the wood for her outdoor kiln. Well, she dropped by this week and had an idea for a sign for the end of her driveway. The story goes that one day she was on her way to work, and lo and behold a turtle was digging at the end of her driveway to lay eggs. Imagine, possible baby turtles. She asked if we could make a sign. First we had to draw something out on the computer.

Turtle Lane sign board,hand crafted,Nova Scotia
drafting Turtle Lane

We decided to build it in layers for dimension. There would be eight parts: the head, four legs, the tail, the body, and the sign. Jim traced all the parts onto inch thick wood…

Tracing out a turtle sign
Working at a turtles pace

and headed to the bandsaw to start cutting.

signs,diy,turtles
Following the lines on the bandsaw

Here are all the parts freshly cut.

diy turtle sign
So cute already

Meanwhile Jim had cut a piece for the sign portion and I headed in to the paint room. I used exterior grade white paint on the whole sign then traced and painted the letters on.

DIY sign for Turtle Lane
Hand painted sign

Back in the workshop, Jim used his carving tools to ease the edges of the turtle and give the shell some detail.

DIY carving of a turtle
Carving out the turtle shell

We added green stain with a little brown stain in the grooves for a little extra dimension.

DIY turtle made from wood.
Adding green stain to the turtle

With the stain dry, Jim screwed all the parts to the shell from the back.

DIY wood turtle
Pre-drilling holes

Here he is all finished just propped up in one of our trees.

DIY wood turtle
Cute.

Fingers crossed baby turtles appear at some point. Wouldn’t that be something.

Have a great weekend.

Later

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