How to Make a Rustic Wood Sign Without Wood

by Marlene

7 Materials

15 Minutes

Easy

I was planning a beach house party and wanted a rustic wood "Welcome to the Beach House" sign for the front door. Alas, I'm no wood-worker, but I came up with an alternative that was the perfect solution for my purposes.

how to make a rustic wood sign without wood

My "wood" sign starts with wood-look contact paper. (Stay with me, you may be surprised how well this turns out.)

I cut a piece from the roll that was approximately 8 1/2-inches by 11-inches.

The next step was to copy the pattern of the contact paper onto regular paper. If you don't have a printer like this at home, you could use a printer at a place like Staples.

Now I have a sheet of paper with the wood grain printed on it. I printed it this way to remove the shiny surface that contact paper has. Rustic wood signs just don't shine. icon

On your computer, write the words you want on the sign, choose an appropriate font (I used "Ink Free") and size of lettering, in this case, 72 . Make sure the words are centered on the page.

Now all you have to do is put the wood-grained paper in the paper tray of your printer and print as usual.

Carefully trim the white edges around the paper so you're left with only the wood-grain.

Find a piece of cardboard you can use to glue the paper to; in this case, the bottom panel of a shoe box, trimmed to fit the sign.

Next, I used a hole punch to make a hole in either corner of the sign and used a piece of twine as a hanger. If you want, glue a 3D butterfly to the top of it to add a bit of colour.