Driftwood Timber Garden Sign

by Adventures In Junking

A seriously weathered piece of driftwood timber inspired a Garden sign...and then an entire patio vignette

driftwood timber garden sign, crafts, repurposing upcycling

I love every weathered inch, including the splits in the wood. But I didn't want it to fall apart as soon as I had lettered it, so my first step was to put some gorilla glue into the bigger splits and then tied twine tightly around the plank until the glue dried - I actually gave it an entire day.

I then sanded by hand to eliminate the most dangerous splinter potentials, then wiped it down. While the glue had been drying I played around on my home computer with font styles and sizes. Then printed it off on regular printer paper and cut the letters out by hand to make my own one-use stencils. Not fancy, but works just fine. I laid the letters out on the plank and outlined them in white chalk.

I used a fine tip paintbrush and white homemade chalk paint (paint remains + plaster of paris). Let it dry.

I used a large Sharpie to outline each letter and make them look more finished. Although Sharpie ink dries almost immediately, I gave the sign a few hours for everything to dry more thoroughly.

I used a hammer and a sanding block to make the lettering look more fitting to the wood.

I fished a metal star with a broken corner out of my scrap bin and used silicone to adhere it to one end of the sign.

The broken tips made the star look right at home. People think I'm a hoarder for keeping broken things, but they do always find a perfect use. If I had gone out and bought a new star it would have looked out of place.

Two quick coats of exterior polyurethane (in hindsight I should have distressed the star a bit more but I was already seeing the bigger nautical vignette and was working in overdrive).

Everything else I already had, except the seagull feather and couple of large seashells that I picked up off the street (benefits of living within a half mile of the ocean) and voila!