Wedding Gift Sign DIY

I was so excited to get back into the swing of things with the monthly Thrift Store Decor Upcycle Challenge this month!

At least, until everything went wrong. . .

The Rules:

• Upcycle an item(s) from a thrift store, resale store, or garage sale into a new piece of decor.
• There’s no monthly theme.
• There’s no budget to stick to.

Meet the Hosts

Amanda | The Kolb Corner    Kim | Made in a Day
Maureen | Red Cottage Chronicles    Pili | Sweet Things
Debra | Shoppe No. 5    Marie | DIY Adulation    Sue | A Purdy Little House
Chelsea | Making Manzanita    Ann | Duct Tape and Denim    Karen | Dragonfly and Lily Pads
Kimm | Reinvented    Kathleen | Our Hopeful Home   Megan | C’mon Get Crafty
Victoria | Dazzle While Frazzled    Shirley | Intelligent Domestications    Angela | Simply Beautiful by Angela
     Michelle | Our Crafty Mom    Jeannee | Shepherds and Chardonnay
Jennifer and Vicki | 2 Bees in a Pod
Ali | Home Crafts By Ali    Denise | My Thrifty House

Make sure you follow our board on Pinterest for more upcycled decor inspiration!

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This is not a joke. EVERYTHING WENT WRONG.

I’ve had crafty issues in the past, but this one was a holy mess. I had plenty of time to work on it, since I’d picked up my “upcycle” piece long before. Unfortunately, a combination of sick kids and heavy workload and about a dozen personal obligations have pushed me up against the wall on this one.

Since my project was so easy (in my head), I didn’t anticipate all the issues. Wah wah. Here’s what I started with:

I absolutely loved the frame on this find, and I snagged it knowing I could turn it into something fun, perhaps a farmhouse sign. While the message on it originally is nice, it isn’t really in keeping with our style, so I knew I would change it.

With wedding season coming up, I naturally thought of my cousin, whose wedding is next month! Then I remembered this sign, and thought I could make a nice wedding sign for her as an additional gift. Since she and her fiance just purchased a house, it sort of doubles as a housewarming present as well. Win!

First step was to tape off the frame, since I didn’t want that to change at all. My next step was to paint several layers of white acrylic over the existing sign.

Here is where it all went south.

My first idea was to create a kitchen sign in a French theme, as my cousin is a complete Francophile. There’s a wonderful French word art design in Cricut that I intended to use for this. I intended to cut it out on black vinyl, apply it over the white paint, and call it a day.

Then I couldn’t get my Cricut Design Space to load. At all. Not through my iPad, my computer, the web directly, nada. No way to get the design cut out.

So then I opted to find something on my Silhouette. I gave up on the kitchen idea when I couldn’t find anything I liked as much as the Cricut design, but I did find a lovely Fleur de Lis with room for personalizing that would be great now that she’ll have a new surname.

I typed in the new name and went to grab black vinyl for the cut. Next problem? I had NO black vinyl that was large enough to cover the surface of the design! UGH.

Okay, fine! (I may have harrumphed.)  I can just paint it black and use white vinyl. Back to my stash . . . nope, not ONE SCRAP of white vinyl at all. GRRRRRR.

I was running out of time AND daylight for a good final photo. I had already painted the sign white, so I figured I’d cut the design on a random color vinyl and paint over with chalkboard paint, then peel it off to reveal the white underneath.

I cute the design and applied my transfer tape over it.

Then my next problem. The paint was still a bit too tacky, and I couldn’t get the design to stick!! Now I was seriously running out the clock on daylight, and getting super frustrated. I could do nothing but wait.

FINALLY, the paint was wet enough for me to secure the design to the board. As you can see by the photos, daylight was gone, but nothing I could do except email Amanda at the Kolb Corner (the awesome creator of this challenge) and apologize that I would be late with my post. Then make sure I got everything done that I could before morning.

Once I was sure the vinyl was secured, I started painting over with my black chalkboard paint. (Yay! I had something in stock!)

I did have to let it dry overnight, but first thing this morning I was up and peeling away that vinyl – and finally no problems! No bleeding or mess! Hurray!

I hope they love it!

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And now for more thrifty goodness!

Check out what my fellow upcyclers created below!