Go Your Own Way

As promised the sign is done!  As a reminder from where we started check out my original pin from pinterest

 (original pin)

Im so sorry I dont know where this originally came from, I cant find the original source but I had to share the picture.

Since its been so long since the first post on the idea, Ill just make this a big post with all the details!  To start with I downloaded fonts that I though best reflected the place that I was going to mark.  Thanks for www.1001freefonts.com for all the great fonts that we used.
If you would like to use the names I did click here.  I printed the names out and had those ready for when the signs were ready to be marked.

Now what is a sign without a good post?!  Since the drought was so bad here last year my mom had a lot of fallen trees on her property, and we scored and awesome trunk from her.

Good post right?!  Not that we have the post, we need the arrows.  I didnt need them to be all fancy but Joe decided to make them look like arrows which is fine with me they were cute.  It wasnt that hard to make these all you need is a 2x4 or pallet wood or whatever you have laying around.  You can break the wood piece to have an angle that points or you can use a compound saw and cut angles that you want for an arrow, just do whatever you think is best for your sign here.

After you cut all your signs out now you are ready to burn/paint the words onto the signs.  We had a soldering gun that had a wood burning attachement.  Thankfully Joe is a great artist and drew the words onto the wood pretty much just like they were on the paper.  You can do whatever works best for you, I thought of buring over the paper or using an excto knife to cut into the wood and burn over that in case Joe couldnt draw them, but seeing as he could I never had to test those theories.  Honestly it was really time consuming to do all the burning and thats what it took so long to get this done, but it was well worth it since I think it will last the longest.  After you get all the arrows done now you can attach them to your post, and thats the fastest part.  If you use a nail gun it will be even easier.

If you put them on at funky angles that gives it an older cooler feel too.  But if you are more meticulous then of course you can make them perfect, its your sign make it fit you!  Now that all the arrows are on plant it in the ground.  If you have a hole digger you can use it or a shovel, but the hole digger makes it a litter easier to dig a hole.  Make sure the hole is about 2 feet deep so that the post is sturdy in the ground.  When the hole is dug stick the post in, re plant the soil and pack it tighthy.  Once thats done YOUR done!  Step back and admire your awesome job on an awesome sign!

What a fun way to make a fun statement in your yard.  We ended up putting ours in the back yard so as not to start any trouble with the HOA, they stress me out.  So what do you think?  All that work, was it worth it?  I sure do think so!

Project Housewife Out!

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Where's the Fire?!

As promised yesterday I have some pictures to share with you on the sign project we are working on.  First up...the awesome tree branch we found to use as the post.

It doesnt look like much here but it has great character that will help with the "vintage" feel of the sign.  In the background you can see the first branch we picked, but I didnt love it so thanks to Mom for having dead trees on the property that we can use as projects.  For those of you playing along at home...so far the total cost for this project is $0.

Now on to the signs themselves.  Joe did a great job making fancy arrows, I told him he didnt have to for all of them so here is the mix of what he made for me.

Pretty cool right?!  Most of these stakes came from this pallet...we love using pallets because hello they are free!  Add that $0 to the current $0 and we are at a running total of $0...not too shabby right.  And we still have wood left on that pallet so who wants to suggest another pallet project?!

A close up on the arrows for you, I found all the fonts online at free font websites.  I thought it added more character to the arrows having different fonts that reminded me of the place they were taking you to.  I have about 5 different Harry Potter fonts right now, but you know I had to use the classic HP for Diagon Alley!

Like I mentioned yesterday, we were going to try and burn an arrow rather than paint them.  Adventurland was my tester (and yes I know adventureland is one word, however my husband apparently does not).  Here is the stake with the outline of the words drawn.  Joe went over that with his soldering gun, its pretty cool and has about 100 different attachments you can use on it, one of which was a little tiny saw that was great for carving out the wood.

After he did that, he poured gas on it and set it on fire...it didnt turn out so bad, but not really usable so we were back at square one.

Joe decided to get a heavy duty wood burning soldering gun, which is great for large projects but not so great for the detail work.  So thats where the wood burning capability on the smaller soldering gun came in handy.  One thing to note, our soldering gun is powered by butane which is great, but once the gun hits the wood it cools almost instantly.  For this particular project it would have been better if it was an electric soldering gun then the gun would have stayed hot the whole time.

Thats where we are on the sign project, making the rest of the arrows is just going to take some time since all the details I put in are a little intricate but hopefully we will get to put the sign in the ground this weekend!  More to come as it comes :)

Project Housewife Out!