Distressed Beach Sign

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Around here, summertime means beach time. We are constantly at the beach and I LOVE it.  My house is filled with coastal touches, whether it be shells that we collect or blue mason jars and distressed wood. I’ve been trying to incorporate the coastal theme into my outdoor space as well. Our back porch has this big brick wall that I haven’t known what to do with until now.  I created a Distressed Beach Sign in order to bring the coastal theme to my outdoor space.

Create a unique distressed beach sign for your coastal decor. #VinylProjects #ExpressionsVinyl

I love making signs rather than buying them because I can get a one-of-a-kind piece that nobody else has like my DIY Wooden Sign.  This type of project may seem intimidating but I’m here to show you just how easy it is.

Here are the supplies that you will need. The links are affiliate links and will direct you to webpages where you can purchase the items.

(1)  18″ x 24″  sheet of  1/4″ plywood

Expressions Vinyl

Transfer tape

White acrylic paint

Blue chalky finish paint 

120 grit sandpaper

Paintbrush

Vinyl tools (scraper and weeder)

First, I painted my wood with one coat of white acrylic paint. I used plywood because it is very light. You could use MDF but it would be a lot heavier. This sign is light enough to hang with 3M strips.

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After the white paint was dry, I cut out the words using Expressions Vinyl and my Silhouette machine. Make sure you cut your words in a color other than white. I cut some in white vinyl and then realized that it would be very hard to see them and line them up on the white painted wood. I have a Silhouette Portrait which only cuts 8.5″ x 11″ so I had to split up the word “starfish” in order to fit it. You may notice that my text has some rough edges. This was the result when I enlarged the font to the size that I wanted it. I wasn’t sure how it would look but it worked perfectly with the distressed look that I was going for. After the words were cut, I weeded the excess vinyl off of the page. We are going to use the vinyl as a stencil.  There are 2 ways that you can do this. One way is to use the negative space of the vinyl as a stencil, like I did with my DIY Wooden Sign.  But today, we are using the actual text as a stencil for a quicker and easier way to create art.

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In order to place your vinyl onto the wood straight, you will need transfer tape. Place the transfer tape onto your vinyl and rub with a scraper to adhere the transfer tape to the vinyl.

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Peel off the vinyl backing and place your words onto the wood. The transfer tape allows you to place all letters at once in a straight line.

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Once all the vinyl is placed, paint the wood with the chalky finish paint. This is the quickest way that I have found to stencil. The vinyl will cover up the white paint so wherever you place the vinyl will stay white.  I find this much easier than stenciling every letter and trying to make sure that the white paint doesn’t bleed all over the blue paint.

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Let the paint dry and then peel the vinyl off using a weeding tool.

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Sand with 120 grit sandpaper to get the distressed look. I’m just loving how this turned out.  It will go perfectly on my back porch.

Create a unique distressed beach sign for your coastal decor. #VinylProjects #ExpressionsVinyl

Want to see more amazing projects using Expressions Vinyl?  Check out all these from my talented blogging friends!


 

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