Subway Sign

Ok, so technically this is not a sewing project, but it falls right into the category of my "diy, forge ahead with reckless abandon, re-purposing materials, learn from my mistakes" kind of craft I like to share on this blog.  In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, I must mention that I got the basic layout from a blog entitled "The Winthrop Chronicles."  I used a different method however.  It was a tutorial on printing the stats on paper and gluing them to wood, whereas I chose to hand paint mine. So here is my finished "Subway" sign with my son's stats on it.

Now let me tell you exactly how I did it, what materials I used, and what I would do differently if I did it again.  Things I like...everything but the 6 lbs 12 oz.  I may even repaint it.  I think it looks like the odd man out...too bubbly or something.  I would ( and might) change it to more of a stencil or boxy font.
Here is my material list:
1. Old piece of board left over from garage shelves
2. Old house paints
3. brushes from thrift store
4. paper plates for "palettes"
5. computer and printer
Here is my wood with the base coat on.  It is our hallway paint.

Now for the nitty gritty how-to:  As with many of my projects, I didn't really have a game plan.  Just knew what I wanted the finished project to look like and thought about how I might do it.  I knew I would use printed words with different fonts and my first idea was to cut out stencils.  Here's how that went:

Oh my gosh, cutting out the numbers was VERY tedious and then it just left messy painting...ok, on to a new method.  I had read about this method before on a blog aptly titled "The Perfect Letter" and it works pretty well.  I say "pretty well" because you still need a very steady hand if you want perfection.  Thank God I don't have a need for the latter because I sure as heck don't have the first!  Anywho... This method involves taping the printed words/numbers to the wood and tracing with lots of pressure to leave an indentation to guide your painting.  The indentation was so light it would not photograph.  I recommend working under a good light when using this method.

I wasn't about to try to trace all the little details in the 8,3, and 5, so I just did the outline and painted messy inside.  Another idea is to sand paper the edges to create a distressed look.  I'm not into that style as much but if you are that's a good way to achieve it.

So here it is again.. a little leftover wood, some house paint, some mistakes, some patience, and a lot of wonderful memories of the exact moment that this sign commemorates.