My Wedding: Signage! (tutorial)

(photo by Jules Bianchi)

Since our venue was a sprawling estate with lots of multi-level terraces, little cottages, courtyards and even a path through the private zoo, I wanted to make sure everything was adequately labeled so that  our guests didn’t get lost!  I hand painted a lot of wooden signs for our wedding!   There was no way a demented  great aunt could get lost amongst the llamas with all the signage we had.

Here are a few of the signs we painted for my wedding!  The entrance to Rancho Las Lomas is easy to miss from the street, so I made these to put up outside our venue so that guests didn’t drive right past:

(photo by Jules Bianchi)

Here is the welcome sign for our greeting table, which had engagement photos of us and a bicycle basket for our cards:

The signs for the bubble tea bar:

There was a sign at the cookie bar, too, saying “cookies! – our groom’s favorite”.

The sign at our photobooth:

The sign for our escort cards:

I even painted a sign with our new last name for our sweetheart table (sorry, white-outed for privacy reasons):

(photos above taken by Jules Bianchi)

For these wooden signs, I really wanted to use the same font that I’ve been using for all our stationary and paper products to create a cohesive look.  Since there was no way I could possibly freehand the calligraphy and my handwriting is terrible, I printed out the text onto paper then transferred it onto the wooden signs and then paint them in.  I got all the wooden signs from Michaels craft store in various shapes and sizes. They range from $2-$9.  The wooden plaques come unfinished so I sanded, primed and painted them white. 

I bought graphite paper to transfer the text over to the plaque. You can buy graphite paper at any craft store for about $2:

If you are only making a small sign or in a hurry, you can make your own graphite paper by rubbing a lead pencil onto printer paper. I remember I used to that in elementary school!

First, print out the text for the sign in the exact size you want onto printer paper.  Then sandwich the graphite paper between the printout and the wooden sign, with the graphite side down (facing the wooden sign). Use a sharp pencil to trace around the letters, basically outlining the font:

Then using a thin paintbrush, you can slowly fill in between the lines:

You can use a regular eraser to remove any stray graphite markings after the paint dries. I had to paint 2 layers of acrylic paint to get the coverage that I wanted.

Luckily, a few of my bridesmaids were kind enough to help me with these signs, each one took a few hours to paint and takes a steady hand.   It’s one of those brain-less projects that can be done watching tv or chatting with friends.

Whew, my wedding blog series is almost drawing to an end! I hope you guys have enjoyed it! I have one more post for you! And then its back to regular programming!

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tagged as: my wedding, paint, sign