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!
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.
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″.
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.
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.
Layout the pages onto the board, overlapping edges.
Mod Podging the Pages
Apply Mod Podge with a foam brush to the board.
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.
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.
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.
Embellishing (Optional)
If you want further embellishments, cut a metal tape measure to the length of the board.
Attach the measuring tape to the surface with E-6000 glue.
Creating the Frame for Your Decoupage Wood Sign
Cut frame pieces to size.
Sand your wood.
Use E-6000 to glue frame pieces to sides of particle board. Clamp in place.
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.
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
If you enjoyed this decoupage wood sign, I’d love for you to check out these other projects: