My parents like to take holidays in Florida (US), particularly on the two connected islands of Sanibel & Captiva. They love these islands with their gorgeous beaches, laid-back atmosphere and abundance of friendly restaurants.
It was my Mum's birthday recently and with them having just returned from a few weeks on Sanibel Island I thought it would be a great chance to make something for her as a reminder of this special place. The distressed look and colours I've been working with lend themselves well to the sunny, coastal look so I set to with some ideas.
Quite quickly I settled on making a sign as this would let me work with some nice pallet boards I'd recently found in their natural state contrasted with some distressed paint boards behind. Ambition soon took over and before I knew it I was working on rather a large scale!
This was certainly my biggest sign project to date. Throwing wind to caution, I did the rough cut you can see above before returning to complete the more intricate details. Subsequent projects have taught me to be bolder with this step - the time saving of just one careful cut is definitely worth it.
Once the letters were finished I cut, painted and distressed the backing boards, switching the order of the colours multiple times before I was happy with how the arrangement looked through the cutout words. The top boards were sanded and filed and I then used some new beeswax that I'd just picked up to bring out the natural character of the wood. After two coats the details really popped.
I was a bit surprised by the weight of the sign in the end but given its length (1.2 metres) and the amount of wood I shouldn't have been. I added two metal slotted keyholes on the back and packaged the sign up to send to my Mum.
Fortunately my Mum was over the moon to receive her present and the sign very quickly found a new home on their wall.
Shameless plug: I love the challenge of a sign project. Do you want a sign like the one featured in this post or do you have something else in mind? Contact me to explore any sign ideas.
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