kitchen sign – A Diamond in the Stuff

Kitchen Conversions Chalkboard Sign

Courtney Carmean — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 14:00:52 +0000

In my effort to spruce up the house (I’m in a MOOD) I am re-doing my dining area. We have built new shelving and I will be blogging about it soon! But in the meantime I needed to decorate my new shelves. I mostly shopped my house for items but I needed to fill some gaps, so I decided to whip something up. My Kitchen Conversions Chalkboard Sign to be specific.

I happen to be perusing Michael’s the other day and came upon a clearanced out chalkboard. It was dark blue (which doesn’t go with my decor at all) but it was adorable and $1.99. So into the cart it went. It just took a little bit of white chalk paint and it was already looking more like me. I knew I wanted to do something more to it though so I grabbed my Silhouette and got to work.

I created a file of kitchen conversions using my Silhouette Cameo. I may be the only one out there, but I can never remember all of those conversions! Now I have a cheat sheet!

I cut the file out of white vinyl and placed it on the chalkboard surface. Then I used a piece of chalk to rub all over the chalkboard to make it look used. I love how the sign has a vintage-y look to it.

The Chalkboard sign looks absolutely adorable on my shelf and fits in so perfectly!

So are you just dying to make your own KITCHEN CONVERSIONS SIGN now??? Well…..if you have a Silhouette I can help with that! Simply click HERE for the file and download it! Am I favorite person today or what!?!?

Have a great week everyone! Linking up to these great link parties!!!

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Looking for more kitchen inspiration? Why not come take a look at this pretty Vintage Drop Leaf Kitchen Table?

DIY Kitchen {FOOD} Signs

Courtney Carmean — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 11:00:35 +0000

We have been in our new home going on 5 months now and I am still putting the finishing touches on things. I keep kicking myself for it not being “finished” but on the other hand I know that it takes time to completely settle into a new home. During the past few months I’ve also been busy crafting for others, shows, and my new booth. So every now and then I am squeezing in some crafting for myself. I finally completed our bookcase and got our last boxes unpacked; the next thing on the list was finishing my kitchen decor.

Here’s how I made my DIY Kitchen Food Signs…..

There are some large spaces above our kitchen cabinets that were just begging for some decor. I attempted to put some random stuff up there….but it ended up cheapening the look of the kitchen and cabinetry. It just didn’t feel right. I decided that I wanted more of a streamlined unified look. So I decided to create my own kitchen decor.

We had a scrap 1×6 board out in the garage that I knew would be perfect. I just measured it out and decided what I wanted my 4 sign lengths to be. Since my cabinets were two different sizes I ended up making the signs two different lengths.

I went back and forth between wanting to paint the boards or stain them. In the end I decided to grab some dark stain that I had and use it on the boards. I used some Minwax stain in Espresso Satin.

After a couple coats of the wood stain (and dry time) I cut out some vinyl with my silhouette. Instead of weeding out the “negative” part of the vinyl and keeping the “positive”, I kept the negative to use as a stencil. I placed the vinyl on the wood signs using some transfer tape. I wanted to try and prevent as much paint bleeding as possible, so I used some Mod Podge first on the vinyl stencil.

Then I used some craft paint on the stencil once the Mod Podge was dry. I used some Buttermilk paint because I wanted it to look aged and not crisp white. When that was dry it was time to remove the vinyl. Now I’m gonna be honest with you….sometimes projects go exactly as planned and sometimes they don’t. When they go wrong they either go horribly wrong and the whole thing is a wash OR they end up actually being better because of it. In this instance the mistake made things better.

For some reason when I went to remove the vinyl the paint started coming up with it. Especially in the corners. I had to push the paint back down to even get the vinyl started. At first I was terrified that the whole thing was ruined. However as I continued to peel the vinyl off most of the lettering was sticking to the sign with only little bits getting pulled off. So what I had in the end were some distressed looking lettering. Which is what I really wanted anyway.

I sprayed the signs with some matte clear spray to finish them off. Once they were dry I pulled out the trusty ole step stool and popped these babies on top of the cabinets. I placed the two smaller signs over the two skinnier cabinets and the larger signs over the larger cabinets.

In the closeups you can see some of the letter variations and “flaws”. *love*

The faux greenery was purchased at Michael’s using coupons. I wanted to keep things simple on top of cabinets, so I added the greenery to all of the cabinets in hopes of keeping things looking unified. I like the color and texture that they add up there.

For the words I ended up going with Milk, Eggs, Sugar, and Flour. I liked the idea of using very basic and simple words for the signs. Almost with the idea that they very well could of been salvaged signs used in an old market. Words that invoked homey thoughts of gathering and baking together in the kitchen.

It may just be me but I feel like they are an awesome mix of vintage and sophistication. Maybe that’s not the best word….but I just feel like they all look so polished and nice up there.

I really can’t lie. I kinda love them.

Ok now for a question…..would you add another sign above the pantry? Or leave well enough alone?

Thanks for checking out my DIY Kitchen Food Signs, I’d love to hear what you think!!!