gettin' crafty: spooky sign

ok ... have you ever had the project you found in a magazine years ago ... you ripped out the page and put it in a book and said "someday i'm going to make this"?  well here's one of those projects for me.  

inspiration photo & directions

i'm not going to take all credit for this project ... i needed the hubs to make the raw signs for me and wanted to find an old porch post to use ... but that didn't exactly happen.  we found a porch post at lowes & the sign was made out of scrap wood from previous projects.  i'm not that great at keeping track of costs but i think all of the supplies were about $60.  

once hubs constructed all of the large pieces it was my job to prime (i just used a spray primer since i didn't care if the finish was rough) and do the color wash ... i was surprised how easy it was - i went to home depot and bought 3 indoor/outdoor samples of paint:  creme, dark grey and a dark brown, then i just googled how to color wash and i think it was a 5x1 ratio of water to paint. 

the lettering was my most feared step ... i created the wording (with the fonts i wanted to use) in word and sent them to hubs who threw it into auto cad so we could see sizing and spacing.  he then took it to a copy shop and had it printed on full scale paper (less than $5).  We just lined it up on the distressed wooden sign and used carbon tracing paper to outline all of the words.  then i took a regular sharpie and outlined all of the letters.  i'd planned to paint inside the letters but it was just easier to color inside the letters with the sharpies.  (side note: i did see that michaels is now selling sharpie paint markers and i would have tried them but black was sold out so i just used a normal old sharpie)

and voila ... here's how my sign looks on our front porch!  not too bad right?  so if i can do it anyone can do it! 

we opted to secure to one of our posts - just in case one of the neighborhood kids tries to climb on it.  :)  i know no crows yet and i wanted to do cheese cloth drapes on the porch as well ... but haven't gotten to that - but hey i figure i'll need something else to do next year, right??

happy halloween week ...