“Please Don’t Feed the Animals” Sign

Now that my little one is old enough to eat Cheerios, I am finding them literally everywhere. I don’t know how they end up down his onesie and make their way into his diaper by the handful but they do while dropping out of everything constantly. We spend most of our time in the living room with a baby gate around the room.  Sweet baby ends up looking like a caged animal, even more so with his puppy prowling around. It’s so adorable.  The more Cheerios he has on the floor around him while biting the gate the more I think “Don’t Feed the Animal.”

As I continued to think and say “Don’t Feed the Animal” I began to look for cute signs that had that saying but I couldn’t find any!?! That was completely unacceptable.  So I made my own.

I started with a wooden sign from Michaels and typed up what I wanted the sign to say in Word.  I played with the fonts and font sizes until I liked how it looked.  Once I had it printed out and taped together I used transfer paper to trace the letter onto the sign.  I painted the letters black and waited for them to dry completely.

Once the lettering was completely dry, I sanded the entire sign, sides and all, making sure to take off some paint in random places.  Once it was sanded to my liking I dusted it off and stained it with Jacobean Minwax.  

While the sign was drying I began modge podge-ing Cheerios and dog treats.  These took a day to dry completely and once they were I arranged them at the bottom of the sign a few times until it was to my liking.  Then I hot glued them to the sign.  

Lastly, I coated the sign in clear coat and let it air out for a while.

Unfortunately for me I do not have a covered porch/sunroom/screened in deck or that is where this sign would be.  Until then it will hangout around the baby’s living room “cage.”