Candy Cane Ranch Wood Sign

There isn't much from my husband's childhood that he talks about so when he does talk about something wonderful and positive from that time I make a point to reinforce those memories and incorporate them into our life.  One of those positive memories comes from the time his family lived with his grandparents.  His grandparents had a small piece of land that they called Candy Cane Ranch.  

Our retirement plans revolve around owning land and homesteading and once we have gone through the work of buying raw land and turning it into a hopefully self sufficient homestead we will need to name our little slice of heaven.  It obviously needs to be called Candy Cane Ranch in honor of my husbands grandparents and the love they gave my husband. But just calling our land Candy Cane Ranch isn't enough, we need a sign so I set out to make one. A sign for our future home that we can look at as we continue working towards retirement and our future.  

Our previous house had an old wooden swing set that was left from the previous owners and was falling apart.  I tore it down and we burned the completely unsalvageable wooden pieces but quite a bit of it was just gunky from being outside for years and just needed a good cleaning.  I used 6 of the 2x4 pieces that were roughly the same length.  I sprayed them down with my pressure washer to get the heavy dirt off.  Then I filled my guest bath with hot water and bleach.  I soaked the wood for 24 hours.  I did this hoping to kill anything that might be in the wood and to kill any mold that might have started to grow on it.  After it soaked I used a plastic scrub brush to really clean each board.  Once each board was clean I put them outside on 2 saw horses to dry in the sun.  This step takes a bit because you really want to be sure the wood is dry.

Once the wood was nice and clean and dry I laid it out and chose which side of each board would be the front and which would be the back. Laying the boards with the front on the ground I attached two 1x1 pieces of wood down the back of the boards about 6 inches in on each side.  I used two screws per board per side, one at the top and one at the bottom of each board to be sure they were well attached.

After attaching the boards I flipped it over and chose my background color. Red.  I painted the entire front, leaving the sides and back unpainted. Then it was time to do the wording.  For this I typed up what I wanted my sign to say in a word document and then printed it out, taping the sheets together as I went. * Be sure to check the size with one letter before you waste a bunch of paper. 

Once I had the wording the way I wanted it I flipped it over and ran a pencil over the back of each letter, effectively making the paper transfer paper without actually having transfer paper. (You could also use an X-ACTO knife and cut out each letter making a stencil but that seemed like more effort than I wanted to put in although my method is tedious as well.) Once I had pencil all over the back of the letters I flipped it over, taped the pages down and then traced each letter so the graphite on the back of the page would leave a mark wherever I traced. This works really well with light colors but if your background is dark you may want to cut out each letter like I mentioned above.

After I traced the letters I grabbed my black paint and started filling in each traced letter.  My letters are really large so it wasn't as difficult or as tedious as it would be if I were making a small sign.

After everything is painted and pretty I leave it to dry for a day and then grab my sander because who wants a sign that looks all new and perfect?  I run the sander all over the sign being sure to take some paint off at the corners and in random spots all over the sign.  This is the first step in making the sign look old and warn.  Once that's done I take a clean rag and wipe off all the dust, front and back.  Then to my favorite part the actual antiquing portion!

Depending on how old I want the sign to look as well as the color of the wood I choose a wood stain that will compliment my sign.  I usually use Jacobean or Provincial Minwax stain.  Either using a rag or a large brush I coat the sign in the stain and then using a clean rag I wipe it off.  This colors the wood and paint leaving it looking beautiful and old.  *You definitely need to cover the whole sign first and then wipe it off or you will get lines from where you stopped and started.  Don't worry though if your sign is large and the beginning starts to dry before you get to wiping you can always run a little more stain over it and then wipe it down.

After staining the sign I give it time to dry completely without touching it and in a place where bugs/dust won't get on it.  Then depending on if it will be inside or outside I either coat it in a clear sealant or polyurethane.

Once its dry and no longer smelling I display that beautiful sign!  





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