How To Transfer Letters On Wood

6 Materials
$10
1 Hour
Easy
This technique is used often to transfer images, letters or numbers to make wooden signs without using stencils you purchase at a store or a fancy cutting machine like the Silhouette Cameo. I decided to give our file cabinet (which is made of wood) a rustic industrial look by transferring letters and numbers to the front drawers.
I painted this office filing cabinet with Paris Gray Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. Originally, it was a light oak color. You can use any kind of paint you like. If you like your original piece the way it is and want to add words or letters, there is no need to apply paint first.
Step 1:  Open a new page in your software program such as Microsoft Word,  select a font and font size that you want to use depending on where you are transferring the letters too.  You can also google lettering fonts perhaps in the quote that you are looking for or an image you would like to transfer.  For my numbers and letters, I googled stenciled letters and numbers and enlarged them by zooming in.  They were a little blurry when I printed them but that wasn’t an issue.
Step 2:   After you print this out, then you will take your pencil and just scribble back and forth on the back side of the paper making sure you have covered the edges of the numbers and/or letters that you want to trace on the wood.  Keep in mind if you have chosen a more intricate font or image you will want to cover the entire image so that all the little details will transfer over
Step 3:  Using masking tape or painters tape, tape the design on your piece of wood or furniture so that the pencil markings are touching the surface.
Step 4:  Now, you will trace around the numbers, letters or image that you want transferred to your surface.  In my case, I traced around the letters “N” and “O”.  Be sure to press hard enough so that the pencil markings will show on your surface.
Step 5:  Next, you will paint your letters, numbers and/or image whatever color you want.  I used Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint in Graphite
My lines were faint but I was able to see the outlines of the letters “N” and “O”  well enough to paint them.  I repeated the process with my number “2”.
Honestly,  I wasn’t planning on keeping the file cabinet for the new office makeover but it does serve a very functional purpose holding all our files.  After adding the  half moon pull handles,  I like it more than I thought I would. The only cost I had with this project was the handles which I purchased at Lowes for approximately $10 for 4 of them. Everything else I already had.


Hope you found this tutorial of how to transfer letters on to wood helpful. If you like this and want to see more of our DIY projects, please visit our blog. We would love to have you!
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