How to make your own vinyl signs

I know I'm not alone in saying that I love the cute wood signs with sayings on them. And you see them everywhere. The store, the craft fair, rummage sales, and everyone has them in their house. But I didn't actually have any. A couple of years ago I found a sign at Hobby Lobby that I loved but per my usual style, I was sure I could just make it. I priced out all the stuff I needed and I thought I could get it all for almost half the price if I watched for the materials on sale. However, after a couple of months of "keeping an eye on sales" it just wasn't working out. Finally the cardboard letters went on sale and I was just grabbing up all my material one day when I realized the sign itself was on sale for 50% off and was going to be cheaper than buying all the material.... Seriously! So I just ended up grabbing the original sign. The story of my life!

But since then I have made a couple of other vinyl signs to help decorate my kitchen. Particularly the space between the tops of the cupboards and the ceiling.



I think that for so long vinyl has been really intimidating to me. I bought my first Cricut in 2007 and I have made anything with vinyl until about 6 months ago! Now I am not only kicking myself for not trying vinyl sooner, but now I'm covering everything with vinyl to make up for lost time!

A couple of years ago I painted a piece of wood and hand wrote a saying on there. I thought it looked ok, but nothing close to professional and really just was mediocre. So I repainted over the top of my letters (let it dry, of course) then cut out my vinyl saying.



I had two signs I was working on at the same time, so don't mind the back and forth of the two signs!

After I cut out my letters I peeled off the extra vinyl around the letters. Then it should look like this picture below.



Since I had never worked with vinyl I wanted to make sure I got it done correctly and I used the vinyl transfer tape. (that is the white paper in the picture below) You don't necessarily need to have the transfer tape and I don't use it for every project, but sometimes certain projects like the one below with a thin font, it is just easier to have the transfer tape.

So the next step is to apply your vinyl to your sign. Use something with a hard flat edge like a squeegee to flatten the letters or design.



Next, carefully peel back the transfer tape to reveal your letters on the wood sign.





Next I painted my sign the "outer color". I let it dry, did a second coat, and let that one dry also.





Last, once my sign was dry, I peeled off the vinyl letters, exposing the paint color underneath.



Here the is before on the other sign.





Then I got my signs up on the cupboard/wall and I was one step closer to having a decorated kitchen!



So it was pretty easy, right? Have you ever made anything with vinyl? How did it turn out?