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Decoupage Wood Sign Made with Vintage Style

The ladies of Hammer Like a Girl show you how to create this awesome vintage style decoupage wood sign for your kitchen or home decor.

Skills Required: Beginner. You’ll need experience with Mod Podge to prevent wrinkles. Also, make sure to use a laserjet printer!

Decoupage Wood Sign Made with Vintage Style

Over here at Hammer Like A Girl, we like old type, old magazines, and we like to eat. It was that combination that inspired us to make a “vintage” decoupage sign to hang in the kitchen. It’s a simple project with big impact.

Decoupage on Wood Sign

You will need:

  • Old magazine/book that you are ok with cutting up
  • Piece of substrate (we used particle board cut to 21″ x 10.5″)
  • Mod Podge Satin
  • Brayer
  • Foam brush
  • Computer/printer
  • Paper cutter or X-Acto knife
  • Wood trim for frame (we used old garden stakes)
  • Old measuring tape (optional)
  • E-6000
  • Hand saw for cutting frame and particle board
  • Sandpaper
  • Clamps

Making the Graphics & Preparing the Board

First pick out an interesting background paper. We wanted a vintage feel for our decoupage wood sign and love the look of big black letters printed over the top of small text.

Old magazines and books are perfect for that and have a great yellowed/aged quality. I also liked the fact that the woman on the cover looks a little bit like my grandmother.)

Make sure whatever you choose isn’t too busy or it will interfere with your large word.

Successful Farming 1940s magazine

Next find/cut a piece of wood that will be used to decoupage the pages onto. We used an old piece of particle board and used a hand saw to cut it to the right size – about 10.5″ x 21″.

Particle board sized 10.5" x 21"

Carefully remove the pages from the magazine and trim the pages so they will fit through the printer.

Old books/magazine are fragile, so to make the page more sturdy and to prevent it from jamming your printer, tape the leading (bottom) edge to a piece of printer paper.

Set up three individual pages in the computer (we used Adobe InDesign, but any graphics program will work) and size the letters so they are as large as possible.

Print each letter on a separate magazine page. Carefully peel off the tape after it goes through the printer.

Letters printed onto magazine pages with a printer

Trim (using a paper cutter or X-Acto) the excess paper around the edges of each page, cutting so that the pages will fit on the board.

Trimming the pages with a paper cutter

Layout the pages onto the board, overlapping edges.

Layout the pages onto the board, overlapping edges

Mod Podging the Pages

Apply Mod Podge with a foam brush to the board.

Applying Mod Podge to the particle board with the foam brush

Working one page at a time, apply Mod Podge to the back of the page and then carefully lay the page onto the board.

Use a brayer to press the page down onto the board. We coated the top of the page with Mod Podge right away, but it works better to wait until the page is dry before Mod Podging the top surface.

Rolling a brayer across the top of the pages on the particle board

Continue Mod Podging and braying the rest of the board/pages, aligning the edges to the board and overlapping the inside edges as you go.

Applying decoupage medium to an additional part of the wood sign

After your decoupage wood sign completely dries (about four hours), apply one last coat of Mod Podge over the top with a foam brush.

Let it dry for about four hours. If you want a “stippled” look instead of brush strokes, apply one last coat of Mod Podge with the foam brush and then use a brayer to lightly roll over the surface.

Using a brayer to create a stippled look

Embellishing (Optional)

If you want further embellishments, cut a metal tape measure to the length of the board.

Cutting a measuring tip with tin snips

Attach the measuring tape to the surface with E-6000 glue.

Attaching a measuring tape to a decoupage wood sign with E-6000

Creating the Frame for Your Decoupage Wood Sign

Cut frame pieces to size.

Wood pieces laying on a table

Sand your wood.

Sanding the frame pieces

Use E-6000 to glue frame pieces to sides of particle board. Clamp in place.

Clamping the wood sign frame in place with large clamps

Wait 24 hours before removing the clamps.

That’s it – this decoupage wood sign is an easy way to add a graphic message to your house.

how to make a wood sign with vintage magazine pages

This project would be easy to modify and customize:

  • Use your child’s name to make a sign for their room
  • Use the word “KEYS”, add some hooks and hang it by the front door
  • Instead of using a piece of wood for the substrate you could use an existing tray or framed picture
How to create a vintage EAT sign with decoupage

If you enjoyed this decoupage wood sign, I’d love for you to check out these other projects: