A dear friend who is having her second baby contacted me to make some custom signs for her baby boy’s room. I was super excited to try out a new technique and make some adorable signs for the new bundle of joy. I’m breaking the process down and sharing how I made these Painted Baseball Subway Art Signs.
I started with a couple of 12in pine boards cut to 12in and 24in.
I painted the boards with some white paint that I had lying around. Each board got two coats of paint for good coverage.
Once the white paint was dry I gave the whole boards a good distressing. I hit the edges and went over the front of the boards with a sanding block to expose some of the wood underneath.
Then I fired up the Silhouette and cut out my vinyl. Can I tell you that it took me like 6 months to get brave enough to use this thing? Oh and I love it!
I used some transfer tape and applied the vinyl to the front of my boards.
Once the vinyl was on I used a foam brush to apply 2 more coats of my letter color, which was white. I was hoping that this would help prevent any bleeding from the top coat color. It worked like a charm too by the way.
After the white paint was dry I added the top color. The soon to be mom of two wanted classic Americana colors so I choose a dark red and dark blue.
After I did a couple coats of blue and red it was time to remove the vinyl lettering. I waited for the paint to dry fully, then I started the long process to removing every letter.
Once all the vinyl was removed it was time to distress! The mommy wanted the signs to have a vintage feel to them so heavy distressing was in order! I went over the entire sign with my sanding block, paying close attention to the edges. Both signs got a matte clear coat to protect them and they were done.
I am so in love with them!
Isn’t the Little Slugger sign just precious?
I had a lot of fun making my Painted Baseball Subway Art Signs and I hope you enjoyed them too!
Linking up to these great link parties!!!
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Since your here….I would love if you’d pop over the this week’s Time to Shine link party and link up! Or just give some fabulous link ups a visit!
These are so awesome! I am ashamed to admit that my poor Cameo has been sitting here unused for a lot longer than 6 months. 🙁 Maybe one of these days…
I Iove them! I can’t wait to hang them up in Joshua’s room. You are amazing at this stuff. Thank you so much girly!
I am so glad you like them!!!
Lo-ove these! My friend Alabama would go crazy over them.
These are great! You’re friend must be loving them!
I love, love, love these! I just wanted to let you know that I featured these on my blog today! Be sure to swing by and grab a featured button! I am just loving these!
Cheers,
Julia
It’s Always Ruetten
These are fantastic! I love the distressed look of them too. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your adorable subway art at Project Inspire{d} linky party last week!! Hope to see you at this week’s party up now : http://www.settingforfour.com/2013/05/project-inspired-linky-party-no.html Pinned your post to our group linky party board! Heather
Brilliant idea about painting the two coats over the letters. I have trouble with bleed through from time to time (there’s almost nothing worse!) and this is such a great idea! Thanks!
I want to make something similar to this. But I don’t have a machine that will cut out vinyl. What would you suggest would be the best way to get the look you have here?
There are a few options you could do…one would be using letter stickers. You could buy different sizes and fonts to spell out what you want. The second would be doing some kind of transfer with your letters. I have seen many different ways that people have achieved this, but basically you would print out your letters/words onto paper and then transfer them to your wood. I think if you do a search for this sort of thing, especially on Pinterest, you will find something. The other alternative would be to just buy the vinyl from someone like me : )
How much would you charge?
How much would you charge?
I would really like to buy the Vinyl from you. It would save me time and money I’m sure, But it has been almost a month since I have heard anything from you. Please let me know if you would be willing to sell me the vinyl you used for these boards and how much you would charge. I would like to start on this project as soon as possible. 🙂
Hi Jamie, we are in the middle of moving cross country right now. My stuff won’t be here for another week. So I don’t think I could get it done for awhile.
How much would you charge?
Hey Jamie, I don’t know if you are still wanting the vinyl for this project. I would charge $20 plus shipping. Let me know!
this is the EXACT kind of thing I want to start doing. I currently do “subway art” on paper/card stock, but I really wanted to do it on wood. However hand painting each letter will be impossible time-wise. You just sold me on the silhouette machine technique! Love it!!!
i see you used the cutting mat with the vinyl. What setting do you use? and what blade # ? I’ve only used my Cameo 2x and I used the vinyl without the cutting mat.
Also, where do you buy your vinyl from – the silhouette store or someplace else? thanks!
Awesome signs!! I can’t wait to make some of my own.
For vinyl with a mat I usually set the Silhouette to the vinyl settings, then I always change the speed to the slowest (I find I have less problems the slower it cuts) and I also have my blade on 4. But sometimes you just need to play with it a little bit to find what is working for your machine. If you don’t want to waste a bunch of vinyl, you can use contact paper to play with. I use Oracal vinyl and have ordered from Expressions Vinyl and Craft Vinyl. Both companies have been good. Good luck!!! Let me know if you have any other questions!
Dumb question, but what do the blade #’s mean? Mine defauts to #2 all the time. What is the difference between 1 or 4 or 10 etc.
Basically it is how much your blade will come down. So if your working with something very thin you would want to use a lower number on your blade. Example: velum would probably only need a 1. On the flip side, if you were cutting something thick like chipboard, etc you would need to increase your blade number so that more of the blade comes out to cut deeper into the material. Does that make sense?
Absolutely LOVE these signs! I’m so glad I’m not the only one who waited 6 months to use that machine, I was intimidated! A few questions: 1) What kind of vinyl do you use? 2) What brand of clear coat did you put on these signs? 3) Where did you purchase the wood? I really want to make some signs for my home!! 🙂
I use Oracal for the most part but I often use contact paper when only using the vinyl for a stencil (like in these signs).
Honestly the clear coat can vary. A lot of times I use matte clear spray from Rustoleum. But you can use just about any kind of paint or spray on clear coat. Even Mod Podge would work.
I usually get my wood from Home Depot or Lowes. I buy them by the board and my hubby cuts them down for me. I most often use 1x boards in different widths (ex: 12 or 10 or 8, etc).
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions!
That helps a lot! Thank you so much 🙂
Hi – question about your subway art (which I LOVE). Could you also do the opposite of individual letters & put down the background (stencil) & pull out the letters instead when you weed your vinyl. I could be wrong b/c I have never tried either way but it seems like it would be easier to grab one corner & keep pulling slowly. Thanks so much for your ideas & inspirations. I can’t wait to try this.