Crafty Imaginings & Silly Things: DIY Front Porch Signs (using cabinet doors)

A visit to the Habitat Store yielded some great buys, including a cabinet door for $3 and cabinet panels in various sizes for $1 each!! I bought several and knew some of them would be perfect for porch signs. I used the cabinet door to make a new "welcome" sign last month.

I simply sanded down the finish on the inset and painted it white. I printed my lettering and traced them onto my cabinet door (using chalk on the back of the paper). Hand-painting the letters takes a bit of time but since the letters are fairly large, it went quickly. After the lettering was completely dry, I rubbed a bit of stain on the white paint to give it a more rustic, aged appearance and then roughed-up a few spots with sand paper.

The sign turned out cute and worked great on the porch this Summer! Still needing more of an update though, I saw a lovely bench fr om Amy at The Idea Room and knew that it was what my porch needed! And since I was building a pretty new bench this past weekend, I figured I'd take the opportunity to replace my old Scripture sign too. One of those $1 panels was the perfect size!

The panel is actually particle board covered in a wood veneer, but it took the stain and paint beautifully!

I stained the panel and then cut the lettering and image from vinyl using my Silhouette.

After the stain was dry, I transferred the vinyl lettering to the panel and put a coat of white paint over the raised front of the panel....excluding the edge (like a built-in frame). When the paint was dry, I rubbed a little bit of stain over the panel using an old soft rag.

I let everything dry a couple of days while I was at work and on my next day off, I was able to peel the vinyl letters off revealing the stain underneath.