Distressed Eat Sign

Author by Amanda Davis on November 2, 2010 Updated on December 6, 2020

5 from 1 vote

In the fall of 2010 I was a contestant in Round Two of Crafting with the Stars. The theme for the second round was “paint” and we could pretty much do whatever we wanted! My first thought was to redo this bookshelf that I have, but it wasn’t really floatin’ my boat, if you know what I mean. Then I suggested to Amy, my fabulous star partner from Mod Podge Rocks, that I use some of the totally cool glitter paint she sent me. She liked the idea, but thought it better to leave that for a different day. I think that was a good choice! ;)

UPDATE: Many people have offered to buy this sign, but I’ve never wanted to sell it. I decided instead to give it away to someone special. You can read about that here – Giving is Better Than Selling.

Pier 1 coat hook rack – taken on cell phone, sorry it’s so crappy

So I showed Amy a picture I snapped on my cell phone about a week ago of the HOME sign you see above. I was at Michael’s with my daughter picking up a few craft supplies. Right next door there’s a Pier 1 Imports. They had all their Christmas ornaments on display so we decided to go in and have a look. Last year I did the same thing and was inspired to make this Santa’s Belly Ornament. They had one for sale there last year, so I made my own instead.

Anyway, Kristen and I were walking around checking out the ornaments and I was snapping pictures of the ones that I liked and thought I could duplicate. It was then that I noticed the employees watching me. Ha ha. Maybe they thought I was with the competition or something! So we kept strolling through the store and I saw this cool, weathered looking rustic sign that spelled out “home”. Each letter had a key, the “O” had a keyhole. I loved it and knew I could replicate it.

When I told Amy that I thought an “EAT” sign for my kitchen with a similar design would be fun, she completely agreed! So that was it, we were all set. Almost. I haven’t painted anything rustic in several years. I used to paint a lot when I had my store, but that was several years ago. Here you can see my rustic paintings and some shots of my store.

I was a bit nervous to say the least. All I had to go by was this cruddy cell phone picture, but then I remembered seeing this great post by Donna on how to make old, rustic signs over at Funky Junk Interiors. I decided to follow her lead. I actually used 3 different colors for each of the letters, only duplicating one color along the way. That meant 7 different colors for this bad boy, so I made sure I took notes and sketched it out ahead of time.

Now that I had my idea, I needed a canvas. I wanted something really rustic. I live in a rural community, so it wasn’t hard to gather some wood from a farmer friend of mine. I chose that big mombo one, and man was it heavy! After brushing off all the dirt and crusty hay (yes, it was in an old hay wagon) I brought it inside and drew lines with a ruler where I wanted my letters to go. In order to get the right size, I used my Silhouette machine to cut out the letters on black vinyl first, then I measured one inch on either side of each letter.

Finally I was ready to actually start painting! :) Because hubby wasn’t home yet to cut this for me, I just went ahead and started painting. Figured we could just cut it later.

The colors I used were:

E = Turner’s Yellow, Aspen Green, Vintage White
A = True Burgundy, Vintage White, Coffee Bean
T = Aqua, Terra Cotta, Vintage White

The beauty of painting something distressed is you can make mistakes and no one will ever know :) So the first step was to put on my first layer for each section. No perfection required here, just squeeze some paint out of the tube and spread it on with a paintbrush.

Next was the second coat, which needs to be a contrasting color. Because I wanted my sign to end up as light, dark, light, I also had to start that way. Therefore, the second layer was dark, light, dark, from left to right. Just dry brush it on, leaving some parts uncovered or not covered as heavily.

A cool distressing technique I learned from Donna’s post on creating old signs (above) was to use masking tape on the paint before it’s fully cured.

This will lift some of the paint, and in some cases, go all the way to the wood. Cool indeed. Don’t you love that hole in the wood too? Neato. :)

Now that there are two layers on each section, you will want to let it dry a bit so you can sand it. See, I didn’t actually do that. Duh. No, instead I went ahead and put my vinyl letters on and realized afterward that I should have sanded first. So needless to say my vinyl letters had lost a lot of stickiness by the time it came to painting over them. Ha! In case you are wondering why I used a reversed stencil technique here, it’s because I wanted to preserve the colors you see above in the actual letters, just like in the Pier 1 sign.

Now it’s time for the final coat on each section. I decided to use a piece of folded paper towel to apply the last coat. I wanted a dry application and all my brushes were wet. :-P I carefully went over each vinyl letter, being careful not to let them lift anywhere since I screwed up their sticky backing by removing them to sand. *sigh*

After getting all the top coats on I let it dry for a bit.

I removed the vinyl lettering and used a sander with a fine grit sandpaper to go over everything, pushing harder in some areas more than others. I also sanded all the edges and corners. I used a soft brush to get all the dust off.

Then I gave it a couple of coats of Krylon Matte Finish sealer.

To attach the old tarnished silverware (found at a thrift store) I used model glue. Worked like a charm. :) E6000 would be another awesome choice.

I realized after adding the silverware that I should have hammered a hanger to the back first. Oh well. Bugger. I’ll have to just be careful when adding the hanger, will tackle that after the kitchen wall is painted!

I’m very happy with my sign, I think Spike likes it too (since this post was created we lost our beloved Spike. He was struck by a car in front of our house. I really miss you buddy. RIP) :(

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5 from 1 vote