make your own vintage sign

We’ve been loving our little kitchen revamp that we were able to knock out right before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, the holidays swallowed all the posts, and we realized we never really shared how we made our vintage ice cream parlor sign.

If you’ve been reading for a while, then you know we absolutely love to create art for our home. It’s an addiction of sorts, I guess.

Hmmmm… Maybe I should purge our art.

Nah.

And we were looking for something kinda personal to bring to the pantry area.

So, we dreamed up this little sign.

Whether it’s childhood memories of vintage ice cream shops or a special trip to Baskin Robbins, I think that ice cream probably holds a happy thought.

Unless you’re lactose intolerant. Just ignore me.

So without further ado, how to make your own vintage sign!

I studied up on old ice cream signs, and decided to create one of my own.

After drawing up some custom art on Illustrator, I had it printed at the local printer on a transparency {It literally costs one dollar} and used an old projector {you can even take the file and use a digital projector} to project it on to a piece of wood.

{pssst… I took our name off the top, and if you’d like to try this, even if you just want to avoid all the cuts and simply put it on a square sign, you can download it here {ice cream sign}. Perfect for a birthday party, kitchen decor, or something cool to flank your home in your own colors… the possibilities with this are endless!}

For this, we didn’t want the sign to weigh much, and we wanted to be able to incorporate some sort of stain. So we used Oak Plywood at a thickness of 1/4″. Once it was traced, we were ready to cut.

We carefully cut on the outer lines with our scroll saw until the shape was complete. (For any parts that we couldn’t reach with the scroll saw we used a jig saw.)

Then we sanded down the edges with a sanding block. And when it was ready, we brought it inside.

If I could give one word of advice, it would be to plan out your design, before you draw it all, and then paint it like this. {Duh. We blew it.}

If we’d planned it all out ahead of time, we may have stained or painted the entire piece, and THEN drawn on top of the wood. We didn’t have an overall look in mind, and as a result, spent a considerable amount of time painting around those letters. Wheeeee!

The good news is, that it gave us plenty of time to finesse it all, and make sure the type was just right.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

The main colors here are Cabot’s Cinnamon Toast, and Benjamin Moore’s Medici Malachite. {The same color you’ll find in our pantry and on our island} We topped it off with some colors from our garage, and then did a light dry brush with white in some areas for an “aged” look.

Once that final top coat of paint was dry, we went back over it with a light tea stain {see our tutorial for this here}

And when that was dry, lightly sanded it down in different areas for a weathered look.

We love the look and how it subtly brings in more of that fun green {and sweet memories} to our kitchen!

Everyone needs their own little vintage sign… don’t ya think? As always, let us know if you have any questions or if you try it.

Have an inspired day!