Does each of your family members have a place where the house keys and the car keys go and no one tells the other where that spot is? Well, that’s how it is at my house. We have never had a central spot for all the keys, so a DIY sign design for them was in order. Follow along and I will show you the easiest way to transfer lettering onto wood. You can make a hand lettered looking sign on your piece of wood and transfer lettering onto wood without a stencil. Stay tuned, there is a bonus for you at the end!!
Supplies:
ruler
1. You will want to make sure it is fairly smooth with not too many knots on it (especially where the wording with be transferred onto). Take some acrylic craft paint (dollar store find!) in your chosen colour and (not too meticulously) paint your piece of wood. Try not to go right to the edge with the paint as this gives the piece a more “authentically worn” look.
2. Once the paint is dry take sandpaper and smooth the surface more until some of the wood grain peeks through the paint. You are now ready for the lettering part.
3. First, figure out the word or short phrase you would like to put on your board. It could be “home” or “keys”. I chose “nest”. I like nest as it represents what home is and I like birds as well.
Open up a word document on your computer and type out your word. Size it up to the font that you would like. Take your word, highlight it and copy it into the “Paint” program (hold CTRL button and C to copy). The Paint program is the one that I use on my desktop Windows computer. Once you have opened up Paint, hold CTRL and P to paste it into the program. You might have to make the area that you are copying it into larger before you paste it. There is a “rotate” button at the top of the screen that is on the main page. Click that and it gives you options to flip it. You are going to want to flip it horizontal. You can print from the Paint program. I am sure MAC has a program as well.
I hand lettered the word, scanned the document into my computer and then went through the same steps to flip the word horizontally. Once you download the word you can resize it in Paint, but just keep in mind that it might distort the word a bit. I will attach my original hand lettered word, that fills up an 8 1/2 by 11″ piece of paper. I will also attach the reversed text in two sizes, the first one is the original size and one that takes up about the first third of the same size paper.
4. Take the reversed word and line it up on your piece of wood where you would like it to go. It will help to tape the piece of paper to the wood so it does not move as you are doing the transfer. Take and cut out the word and adhere it more than I did because as the paper gets wet it tends to warp and pull away from the wood.
5. Lightly (I mean lightly) dampen the surface of the paper where the letters are.
6.Then take a pen with the cap on (a rounded one works best) and start to lightly press the lettering onto the wood. The word with transfer partially.
7. Press the lettering onto the wood until you see the word appear enough to get the clear outline.
8. Fill the word in with paint or marker. My piece of wood was not very smooth so it was hard to see the lettering coming through.
9. Attach your hooks where you would like them. I chose three as any more than that looked too busy on the size of board that I have.
There, now you are ready to mount your “Dress Your Nest” hand lettered sign to the wall.
If you like FREE and would like more printable goodies, go to the FREE PRINTABLES gallery page and there you will find two 2018 Calendars, cards, gift tags, quote prints and more!! Here is a sampling from the hand lettered, watercolour art whimsical vintage calendar. This 2018 Calendar would look lovely on a message board or clipboard above this “nest” key holder.
And voila, happy family!
If you liked what you just read, please share the love and comment, share or pin. Thank you!
Blessings from my house to yours,
Darlene
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