How to: Stencilled Grocery Sign on Old Fence Board

Donna of Funky Junk Interiors has an Old Sign Stencils shop link on her blog. 

I love her stencils and today I am stencilling GROCERY Est 1961 on an old cedar fence board.

When we took down the old (like 40 year old with lots of replacement repairs) fence a couple of years ago (and before I was 'into' signs) I saved a few boards with grey (layers of grey) one side and brown (Mr. Brown was our fence neighbour) the other. I moved (the rest are outside) a few of the boards into my kitchen to  keep them dry and it is time to make another sign.

Time and decent January weather (temp. around 12 C, no rain, no wind, some sunshine) all happened on Thursday afternoon this week), perfect sign prep day.

Prepping the board 

It took about an hour to do the prep work and did include DH cutting off about 4 inches of the cedar board.

I tested the turquoise wash on one of the cut off ends to make sure it was the consistency I wanted.

Sanded the fence board and gave it a wash of turquoise.

Dried outside (about 11-12 C) for about 1 hour. I didn't work on the sign again until Saturday so it had more than enough time to dry.

Used a sponge sander to remove some of the turquoise colour before I stencilled. 

Stencilling Time (this took the longest)

Brushes, CeCe Caldwell Beckley Coal, stencil, yellow masking tape and the board just before starting to stencil. I used the larger (black) brush for the larger letters and the smaller brush for the small letters and numbers.

The photo above shows the colour of the board (daylight picture) while those below, showing the sequence of stencilling, were evening shots.

I taped the Grocery stencil to the board (each end) and used my fingers to keep the each letter from shifting or lifting as I stencilled. I always have a pad ready for removing excess paint from my brush, this time it was a newspaper, to make sure I don't get a glob of paint on any letter. It took about 2 minutes to stencil each letter but I did not rush the job and took breaks between letters (one break was to drive to the local hardware store to pick up another Beckley Coal in case I ran out). Stencilling takes concentrated energy and is tiring to the wrist/hand.

When adding the EST. 1961 to the Grocery Sign I could not find my number strip (1 1/2" wide, 12" long) and I wanted a 1961 sign so I stencilled the 19 1 and when dry turned the 9 over to make the 6.

Since I pulled out my dresser to see if the sign had fallen behind I dusted, sorted my signs, clipped them into groups and hung them from cup hooks on the end of my laundry/storage bookshelf, just a bit of organization for the next time they are needed.

Waxing

I used CeCe Caldwells Clear Wax and a wax brush, covered front, back, all sides and let sit for an hour. Polished with a clean rag.

When I was picking up my paint today I saw a brush that can be attached to an electric drill to use for polishing. I should have picked it up, next time I will. 

I borrowed these images from Amazon and CeCe Caldwell.

I googled and found a site that tells how to use the brush, Shizzle Design, as well as a great many other brushes. The writer talked about drill speed (medium not super fast) when using the brush and said the buffing made the wax surface harder than hand buffing. Sounds good to me. I will try the brush out on my next project and let you know what I think of buffing with a drill driven brush.

Clean Up

Cleaned the brushes, using lye soap, rubbed the bristles against my hand as I cleaned them. Shook well, stood up in a jar I keep my brushes in.

Cleaned the stencil with warm water, spray cleaner, fingers, soft scrubber, rinsed very well. Gentle is good. Some of the letter joins are very thin and care must be taken not to bend or break these joins. I recommend keeping eyes on fingers when cleaning.

Supplies:

Prep work:
old painted cedar fence board
electric sander and sandpaper
rag for cleaning
kitchen knife for chipping paint
paper towels (wet and dry)
CeCe Caldwell Santa FeTurquoise, approximately 1 tsp:4tsp ratio for a wash in a large dish (you have to decided how dense you want your colour)
paint brush
sponge sander
pencil
Set Square/roofing square

Stencilling:
Grocery sign and Est 19.. sign (its on a Coffee sign)
Stencilling brush
CeCe Caldwell Beckley Coal Chalk-clay paint
yellow tape

Waxing:
CeCe Caldwell Clear Wax
Wax brush
rag for polishing

Clean Up:
lye soap to clean stencil and brushes (most any soap will work)

Hope you enjoyed this post. I was certainly looking forward to making another sign and this is one of my favourites. Some bloggers hang this sign in their kitchen. Donna of Funky Junk hangs hers with her message centre here. Google 'grocery sign' and you will find a great many variations, colours, styles and placements. Fun. 

I previously made this GROCERY sign here and here.

Thanks for visiting.

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