DIY Christmas Porch Sign

Welcome to day 24 of my 25 Days of Craftmas series!  Today I’m showing you how to make your own porch sign for Christmas.  These signs are super popular right now and are a great way to dress up your holiday porch.  Unfortunately, they cost a small fortune to purchase.  But, with just a few supplies, you can make your own and save yourself a bundle of money!

These signs are easy to make. You’re basically just making a giant stencil.  If you have scrap wood laying around, this project is basically free.  If you need to purchase wood, you can find the lumber at your local hardware store for around $10.

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED

HERE’S WHAT YOU DO

The first thing you’ll need to do is get the free SVG file you’ll use for this project.  I keep all the SVG files I use for the projects I make in my SVG Library.  These SVG files work with Cricut and Silhouette machines, as well as many others.  This library is open to everyone and is free! You can access the library here. Look for the file called Be Merry Vertical. It will either be listed under the Christmas category-25 Days of Craftmas 2018 – Day 24.

Start by cutting your wood down to size and painting it white.  I used pine and my wood measured 60″ x 9.25″.

While the paint is drying, open the design in your vinyl cutting software.  Size the design to 5.5″ x 50.25″.  There are two ways to cut out the vinyl and the method you choose will depend on your machine’s cutting abilities.

If your machine can cut long lengths of vinyl, draw a rectangle around the design that is the same size as your board. This is the method I used and so I drew a rectangle that measured 60″ x 9.25″.  Usually, I center the design inside of the rectangle, but since I was adding some embellisments at the top, I shifted the design down 7.5″ from the top of the rectangle.

If your machine can’t cut long lengths of vinyl, you’ll need to break up the letters into smaller pieces.  Most machines can cut about 24″, so you can draw a rectangle around 2 letters.  Make sure the rectangle is the same width as your board.  You might need to ungroup and use the slice or knife tool to get the stencil to cut correctly.  Once you’re done, the stencil should look like one of the two examples below.

Cut out your design and weed away the letters so you’re left with a stencil.

Do you need a little help creating a stencil design?  Check out this step by step tutorial for Silhouette Users here and for Circut Users here.

Apply transfer tape and trim down to size.

Remove the vinyl backing and line up the edges of the vinyl stencil with the edges of the board. Make sure it’s lined up all the way down the board.

Rub over the entire stencil to help it stick to the wood. Then, remove the transfer tape.

Paint over the stencil with the white paint.  This step will help prevent bleeding.

Once the white paint has dried, fill in the letters.  Do a couple of light coats rather than one heavy coat.

When the paint is dry to the touch, carefully remove the vinyl stencil.  Look at those nice clean lines!  If you want, you can spray your sign with a protective finish.

To embellish the sign, wrap some rope around the top a few times and secure to the back with hot glue.

Then, glue on some cute Christmas decorations.

Find a place on your front porch to display your new sign!

Did you enjoy this post?  I’d love for you to pin it to your favorite pinterest board.