shabby sign

1. Visit Home Depot and head to the back of the lumber aisle. They should have a discount bin, where you can snag a board like this for practically free. Actually 51 cents, but if your kids flash a pearly grin, and ask adorable questions like, “What kind of wood is this?,” and “Do I need to sand with the grain?” then you might just score them for free.

NOTE: I have only seen the discount bin empty one time. You may not score the same size board as we did but there is usually always something to work with. Try to take the STRAIGHTEST board with no SPLITS.

2. Cut your board. HD will do this for FREE! or if you have a saw at home, that works too. We cut our boards at about 14 inches. We got FIVE signs out of one board! SCORE!

3. Paint your background color on your board. Use a lighter color paint, as we will darken it up a bit a little later. (Sissy’s signs were painted white and light blue to begin with.) TIP: While you’re at Home Depot, check their paint department for the “Mess Ups” rack. I often find a small tub of paint for 50 cents!

4. Choose your word. Pick a font that is crisp and easy to paint. Print it at a size that will fit your board.

5. Follow this chalk tutorial for transfering your word to your board. Or use graphite paper, we’re cheap and there are ALWAYS little chunks of sidewalk chalk around our house.

6. Paint your word. This is the longest part, go slow, don’t fret over mistakes, we can sand them off…and we want it to look shabby anyway right? We have a basic paint brush set from Wally World that included a slanted tip paint brush….this helps quite a bit.

7. Shabby your board up a bit. Use sandpaper to rough up your word. Hammer in some dents. Rough up the edges…ect.

Don’t be afraid to take out some big gouges!
Where ever there is bare wood showing, the stain will soak in.

8. Use a wood stain over the paint. This is the most expensive part of the project. Wood stain is about $8 at Home Depot, but it will last you a lifetime! You literally use a dab of this stain for each board. I love Minwax Jacobean for most projects.

To stain your board: Wear gloves, dab an old rag into the can, and then wipe it over the whole project, let it set for a few moments, then wipe it off. Throw away your rags. (I read somewhere that staining rags can self ignite…and that is not good right? So toss them!)

Mom or Dad can do this part too, if you’re nervous about the kiddos handling such a noxious product.

9. Let it dry. We move ours indoors because it sets quicker. Afterwords you can spray a poly coat on if you like, this is just an extra step to protect the sign if say you needed to clean it for some reason. Not necessary, but if you have the spray anyway, give it a quick shot.

10. If you want to be fancy, hammer a hook or a picture holder into the back.