Home Sweet Home Floral Wooden Sign DIY

Every year, once the warm weather rolls around, I go on an all out crafting binge to decorate my front door.

With the threat of snow and gray skies behind me, I find myself craving color.

And eager to display something bright and welcoming.


I adore wreaths, and over the past decade, I've made more than my fair share.

However, I also enjoy stretching my creative muscle to come up with front door decor that's a little out of the box.

In the past I've had fun using:

• Rain boots
• Ribbons
• Stickers and...
• Hangers

Well, this year, I've been a little slow on the draw and my house was definitely frowning for far too long.

It's been a busy season and, while I've had the supplies on hand for this DIY for weeks, I haven't had the time to put it all together until this weekend.

But. I think it was worth the wait. If I do say so myself.

The idea started with this 18" wooden round I found while my husband was shopping for driveway sealer...because that's no fun.

It was a thin piece of birch light enough to hang on the door, with just enough wood grain to be charming, but not enough to be distracting.


I knew instantly, it'd make the perfect base for a wooden wreath sign of sorts. Plus, it was cheap.

Now, since I had no intention of hand painting or stenciling anything, I had to order some vinyl letters. I don't have a fancy machine so I went to Etsy. There are so many great shops there that will customize sayings for you and for not a lot of money.

It's a much more economical way, for someone like me, who wouldn't use a Cricut Maker often enough to make that expense worth the price.
 
I was able to choose the color, the size and the type of vinyl transfer I wanted to use - indoor or outdoor. I, of course, chose the vinyl appropriate for outdoor exposure.


In red.

Big surprise. 😉

While I was waiting for my delivery, I gave my round wooden board a coat of a light colored water based gel stain.


I've used this product before on my fireplace mantel and on a cabinet door upcyle and have been very pleased with the results. So I decided it was the perfect way to enhance the wood for this front door sign.

When I finally opened the transfer this weekend and read the application instructions, there was a silver lining wrapped up in my procrastination. Turns out, the shop recommended waiting several weeks for the paint/ stain to cure before applying the transfer.

That meant I was right on schedule. Don't you love it when things work out that way?

Speaking of directions, the transfer came with very explicit ones. I read them over several times and referred back to them often, even though I've used transfer many, many times before.

First, I had to use the enclosed tool push on the transfer itself, to preo it and make sure it stuck to the backing.
Then I peeled the top layer away from the white plastic backing and positioned it on the wood round. Since it was sticky there was no need to tape it into place. 

It stuck to the wood on its own.


Only then did I begin to rub the tool on the letters to get them to transfer onto the wood.

I moved very slowly over the sheet, applying pressure, until the letters released themselves from the backing.

If they didn't I simply put the plastic back over them and applied more pressure and tried again.


The only issue I ran into was that the plastic backing paper was very large and whenever it touched my letters on the board, it stuck to them again. Grrr.

I finally decided to get my scissors out and cut away any of the clear backing that I was no longer using. I did this over and over again as I moved through the process until I was all done.


And my sign was complete.

Fabulous.


Of course, I was only half way done at this point.

A spring/ summer wreath needs flowers, and for that, I dug into my stash and pulled out a handful of red and white Dollar Tree blooms.

They were easy enough to add.

I removed them and some greenery from their wire stems. Then I cut the plastic clip off the back so they'd sit flush on the wood.


Then I used my cordless hot glue gun to secure them in place.

I kept adding flowers and greenery until I was happy with my design.

I also added a red ribbon bow that did double duty as an accent piece and a hanger. I used a thin gold wire from my bowmaker tool to tie my bow up and then threaded its ends through the two holes we drilled in the wood.

Then I tied them up to create a loop that I could hang on my magnetic door hook.

At this point, I thought I was done, until I stood back and decided that my round, wooden, wreath sign needed...something...else.

After a few moments of pondering, I had a brainstorm that involved decoupaging wooden butterfly and flower ornaments with red checked napkins.


An ode to picnics, if you will.

To do this, I just seperated my napkins so they were one ply.

Coated the wood with decoupage gel - I use Dixie Belle's Satin Sealer - but you can use Mod Podge if you prefer.

Then I placed the napkins on the wood.

Smoothed out the wrinkles with my hand in a plastic baggie so my fingers wouldn't stick to the wet napkins.

And then brushed more decoupage gel on top, repeating the baggie step, too.

Once they were completely dry, I sanded the edges to remove any excess napkin.