DIY Script Sign

Hello there!

We used to have some lovely chef themed plaques hanging above our kitchen window until I found that one had seemingly fallen off the wall at some point.

(either that or our house is haunted...)

I had been looking around for something interesting to put above the window and found a quote that I really loved and thought would be nice to have hanging in the house.

With my husband being out of town, it was a perfect time to set about crafting.  I went rummaging around my dad's garage and found the perfect piece of wood that used to be part of an old table.  Lucky for me, it already had some nice antiquing, so I didn't have to do anything extra.  I just cleaned it off with some mineral spirits.

Now, some people have the talent necessary to create beautiful script writing.  I am not one of those people. So here's the trick I use to make pretty things with pretty writing.  I downloaded the font Bombshell Pro (for free, of course) and typed up the quote in Word.  I blew it up to something like 150 size font and printed it out.  It's only in red because I didn't have any black ink.  The next step is to color over the back of the print with pencil.  You want to make sure you cover every part of the writing.  What you are doing is essentially creating a carbon transfer.

Next, I laid out my sheets of paper to get an idea of how it was all going to work out.

Luckily, it all fit on there pretty perfectly.  I then used a rotary cutting ruler to make sure my words would be straight.  I lined up it up with the edge of the board and the bottom of my piece of paper, then taped the paper down with masking tape.

To transfer the pencil onto the surface, you just trace over the outline of the font with pen.  You want to push pretty hard.  Before I painted I went over the words again in just pencil so that I could see them easier.  If you're working with a lighter surface, this won't be necessary.

Repeat the lining up and the tracing until you've done the whole thing.

If you look closely you can see a few different words. It's ok if it's not perfect since you're just going to paint over it.

I used a small paintbrush and this metallic acrylic paint that I got at Target for a couple bucks to do the painting.  I wasn't sure if it was going to be opaque enough, but it turned out just fine!

In all this project took probably 2 hours.  Overall though I'm very happy with the finished product!  Don't be afraid to tackle something with pretty lettering, it's really easy using this carbon transfer method!