Christmas,  Crafts

Making a Christmas Sign

Earlier in the year I joked that I was quitting Pinterest. It was a joke people, I didn’t actually follow through with it. And I’m glad I didn’t because then I wouldn’t have made this awesome sign. The one I was eyeing was square with a frame and had been aged and sanded. It was nice but we wanted something a little more unique. Enter Jim. His suggestion was one of the ovals we had cut from hemlock last year. Here is the finished sign, then I will show you how I did it.

DIY,Christmas sign,Christmas plaque,farm fresh christmas trees,hemlock wood slice
Christmas sign

When Jim first brought the oval wood slice in and held it in place I thought, holy crap that thing is huge!! It measures 38 x 15 inches. Then the idea started to grow on me and we ran with it. The sign is kinda fitting seeing as we live on a piece of land that was once a Christmas tree lot.

First thing I did was painted two coats of white for a background. I didn’t want the edges of the white paint to be crisp so I just dry brushed around the very edge to soften the look. I painted both sides like this because I plan to paint something else on the other side for the other 345 days of the year.

DIY,Christmas sign,Christmas plaque,farm fresh christmas trees,hemlock wood slice
Hemlock oval slice

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, once I knew the size of the white painted space, Jim began working on the graphics on the computer.

DIY,Christmas sign,Christmas plaque,farm fresh christmas trees,hemlock wood slice
Graphics for the sign

We printed it out, cut out the shape, and laid it on our wood slice to get things lined up.

DIY,Christmas sign,Christmas plaque,farm fresh christmas trees,hemlock wood slice
Lining things up

Then placed our tracing paper between the printout and the wood…

DIY,Christmas sign,Christmas plaque,farm fresh christmas trees,hemlock wood slice
Ready to trace

And drew around all of the lines.

DIY,Christmas sign,Christmas plaque,farm fresh christmas trees,hemlock wood slice
Ready for paint

The colors I decided on were black, green, brown and light grey. You could very well use red in there too.

DIY,Christmas sign,Christmas plaque,farm fresh christmas trees,hemlock wood slice
All painted, ready to hang

Here is another picture of it hanging in the entryway.

DIY,Christmas sign,Christmas plaque,farm fresh christmas trees,hemlock wood slice
Well hello!

Just so you know, I HATE getting my picture taken. Your welcome. Actually I just wanted to show you the scale of this piece.

I mentioned earlier that I painted the other side with white as well. While I had the paint out and was in the mood to paint I added a few chickadees and branches to the other side. After Christmas we will simply remove the hanger and put it on the other side for hanging.

wood slice painting,diy,chickadees
For the rest of the year

Jim had posted a picture of the Christmas sign once it was finished and hanging and we got a request from a Christmas tree seller who wanted his business name on a similar sign. For this one we added four coats of spray Varathane since it will be hanging outdoors.

diy,wood slice,christmas sign
Custom order

I can just picture our new Christmas sign hanging with theĀ Christmas stockings

Later