Framed Farmhouse Sign How-To

While on my hunt for home décor I have continuously come across (and fallen in love with) those framed farmhouse signs filled with witty quotes, inspirational messages, or song lyrics- recently made more popular by Fixer Upper (side note: their book is almost out and I just pre-ordered mine!). I have never bought one before because I kept thinking “I can make that”, but then I never did make any.

After purchasing a ton of 1×2 boards for some other projects and some plywood for a side table I built I decided to test out my sign making skills. I will tell you this; it’s harder than you think.

Let me recap some of the problems I had,

For starters, the 1×2 boards did not want to stay straight when I was drilling them together using my Kreg Jig pocket holes. Then, the white paint I chose to spray on was too thinned out and I had to brush on the paint, which lead to some brush strokes. AND THEN (seriously, I’m not done) I tried to paint on the words, which lead to a whole mess of problems because the paint wouldn’t go on even, and the bristles of the brush wouldn’t stay straight, so I kept getting stray strokes of grey paint and uneven edges. So I had to start all over by flipping the sign upside down and painting it white again while I tried to come up with a better plan.

Finally I had an epiphany- which I’ll share later of course. 😉

Building the frame

The first thing I did was build the frame to the size I wanted the quote to be. I cut two 1”x2” boards to 24” and two to 10”. I’m still working out how to do 45* angles on the corners and have them come out perfectly square and learning how to measure perfectly each time, so for now I am sticking to joining the boards at the end. J

I adjusted my Kreg Jig to ¾” and drilled one hole on each end of the 10” boards. Using a 1 ½” pocket screw I attached the boards. Because the boards were so light and thin they wouldn’t stay still when I was attaching them- one even started spinning in circles! So, be sure to clamp down your 24” board that you are drilling into, and hold onto your 10” board with the hole.  I sanded the frame down until smooth and stained very lightly with my favorite stain color, Walnut!

Then I grabbed a plywood board and cut it to size to be about ½” smaller than the frame on all sides. I did not attach the plywood back yet, but instead painted it white (I used Americana Décor in Everlasting) and attempted to paint the quote on it before attaching.

Adding the quote (the right way)

To find the best font- since I can’t write very pretty on my own- I went onto Picmonkey.com and typed out the lyrics I wanted to use and chose a font that was pretty, but easy enough to duplicate.

If you desire, you could print off the copy of your creation and use them as a stencil, but because 1) my printer was broken because someone (who for sure was NOT me) broke the ink cartridge in the printer trying to take it out 2) my sign was bigger than 8.5×11 and I didn’t want to deal with the drama of attempting to figure out how that would work and 3) after all of the trouble trying to figure out the best methods I did not have the patience to wait for the printer to be fixed.

After the font looked good, and the layout was fine I grabbed a pencil and very lightly wrote out the song lyrics I wanted.  Bonus points if, without Googling it, the song and artist who sings this song!

Now it’s time for my crazy simple epiphany moment- Sharpie markers. Duh!

I used a silver metallic Sharpie (I bought a package like this with several metallic colors) to trace over the pencil lightly. After everything was traced thinly with Sharpie I referenced my Picmonkey photo and began thickening each letter and each curve of the letters according to the photo.

After a few words were done I got the hang of how the font style was going to look, and went freehand at it for a bit.

Once I was satisfied with how the font looked I added Cyle and I’s wedding date to the bottom corner (nervously freehanded).

Even though it was a marker and didn’t have a dry time, I let the sign sit and wait to be touched. I was not taking any chances of smudging anything. J

I used wood glue on the back of the frame to attach the complete the process- although it you have the right size of staples, you could use a staple gun to attach the frame to the quote.

And voila! Thanks to me, you know the easiest way to make a framed farmhouse sign. Aren’t I just the sweetest for going through all of the trouble of doing it wrong so you could do it right the first time? 😉

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