Creating a Family Home Evening Sign - Tutorial

If you are like me, then you have a night each week dedicated to "Family Home Evening". You may call yours family game night, family movie night, or a myriad of different terms. Well, I wanted to start letting my children have an opportunity to participate in the planning of this evening. SO.... I decided I was going to make a sign to keep track of who's turn it was to do what! ()


My ultimate goal is to create name tags to hang on each knob {but that will be saved for another post!} and then rotate the names each week.

Here's how I did it!

Supplies:
Piece of wood - I just used cheapy plywood because I was painting, not staining. If you plan to stain, buy something a little nicer. I got mine at Lowes. If you know the size you want it... a nice person will cut it for you there! How easy is that!?
Paint or stain - I used a paint sample can from Home Depot that I already had. If you want a color to match your decor, they can customize any sample can to your color... and they are only like $3.
Paint brush - make sure it's clean and dry!
Power drill
Cabinet knobs and screws
vinyl lettering
• Picture hangers
• Hammer
• Screwdriver

I bought my vinyl lettering from Inspire Your Walls. It was a custom order, but I know there are LOTS of vinyl lettering companies who do this sort of thing!

Okay, let's get started!

Since I had my wood pre-cut, I just needed to paint it! I grabbed my dry paint brush, my wood, and my paint. I dry brushed my paint on -- meaning -- you put very little paint on your brush at a time trying to keep your brush as dry as possible. It gives your wood a textured, aged look. PLUS, you can still see just a tiny bit of wood poking through the paint.


See that tiny bit of wood poking through in between my brush strokes? That's the effect that dry brushing does. If you want your a solid color, I suggest you prime it first (or buy paint with primer) and paint two coats of your top color. You can spray paint it too for an even coat!


After I let my paint dry - which is very quickly with dry brushing - I opened the box to our new sander {woohoo!}. I sanded the edges and the corners just slightly to add to the "old" look of my sign.


After sanding, I went back and added just a tad more paint on the corners with my dry brush.


Now it's time to apply your vinyl lettering. Wipe off any excess sanding dust so that you have a nice clean surface to work with. Then, take your vinyl lettering sheet. It should come to you with the vinyl letters sandwiched between what looks like 2 sheets of contact paper. You want to peel off one sheet so that when you look through the other sheet you can read your wording.

Then take that sheet {which now has the vinyl letters on the other side} and gently lay it down on your piece of wood. {If you want to be super exact, you can measure the center of your board and the center of your wording and line them up - I just eye-balled it!}


Once you have your wording where you want it, take an old credit card, a pampered chef stone cleaning squeegee thing {if you are a pampered chef consultant I apologize for not knowing the technical term for that item}, or in my case an old wooden ruler - and press firmly while moving it across the lettering. You want to push firmly so that your lettering will adhere to the wood surface. Make sure you go over each letter!


After doing that, I used my ruler to measure where I would drill my holes for my cabinet knobs. I chose a point that was half-way between the bottom of my sign and my wording. Then I centered each knob for each word and put a dot there with my pencil.


Then it's time to remove that paper from your vinyl lettering {insert suspenseful music here}. Start on one end and VERY SLOWLY peel back the paper. Keep your pressing utensil at hand. If your vinyl sticks to the paper as you peel, simply lay your paper back down, press your lettering again, and re-peel.



Voila!


Now it's time to bring on the power tools again! {woohoo!!!!!!!} I wish I could say I have a nice workbench on which to do these kinds of things..... but, I don't ... at least not YET! So... I borrowed the side of my BBQ. My darling 4 year-old took this picture for me ... as proof that I did it myself! {No help from the hubs on this one!!} I used my power drill and drilled the holes that I had previously marked. Make sure you choose a drill bit big enough that your cabinet screws will fit in!


Ta da!!!


Next I added my picture hangers to the back. I find it easier to do this step now vs. after the knobs are on because once you put the knobs on you won't be able to lay your wood flat to hammer these suckers in! You can buy these little guys at the hardware store... or even at Joann's!


So, you measure 1" to 1.5" from the top of your sign and about 3"-4" from each side and mark where your hangers are going to go.


Okay, if anyone has a better way of putting these little guys on, let me know! The nails are teeny tiny, so here's what I do... since you can't really hold the nail and hit it with your hammer at the same time. I line up my picture hanger with my markings, then take a nail and push it into the wood {through the hole in the hanger of course} as hard as I can so that it stands up on it's own. {this is easier if you are using a softer wood} Then with one big BANG of my hammer I smack that sucker into the wood! Just make sure you don't miss!


And there you have it! Next {and lastly} you screw on your cabinet knobs. I hold the knob on the front of the sign and turn the screw into the back with my screwdriver. You could totally use a power screwdriver, but I was too lazy to swap out the drill bit for the Phillips screwdriver bit... so I went manual on this one!


And that's it! I managed to get this sign done during my sons 2.5 hr nap one afternoon! I love when I can start and complete a project in 1 nap time!



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