DIY Groceries sign

Hey there!  I am sharing a cute little project that I did for our kitchen (with a little help from the best little helper ever).  Pinterest and Etsy are full of DIY adorable little wooden signs.  I realized I had the perfect place for one right above my pantry.

First, you need to decide on your word.  You could choose anything from Market, Eat & Drink, Grocery, Pantry and the list goes on.  I chose Groceries.

I didn't want to spend any money so I went shopping for wood in my garage and found this perfect piece of wood that would fit the word Groceries...

I apologize in advance for the poor lighting in these pics but I tend to do projects at night and there is a lack of beautiful natural light at that time of day.

Next, I stained it with Minwax Dark Walnut stain.

You could paint the board and distress it instead of staining it but I wanted some dark wood accents in the kitchen so I opted for the stain.

 Next, you need to make your stencil.  I chose the font Geneva and enlarged it.  I printed the pages out and cut them out of some binder dividers.  I had to piece three of them together to get all my letters on my board.

 This step is important.  Get your little helper to hold them where you want them so you can tape them down with super hero duct tape.

"Mom!  Mom!  MOM!  Take a picture of me!"

 I can't get that kid to stop wearing those jammies.  He will fish them out of the dirty laundry every night.  They are so gross and so bagged out.  But I pick my battles.

Alright.  Now you need your paint.  I used some left over cabinet paint I had on hand and added some royal blue and back to it.  I mixed it really well.  Then I got my foam brush and let the little guy help.

The key here is to dab the paint on with the brush and not get too much paint on your brush or your letters will end up looking like this...

No need to worry.  You can use a super small craft paint brush to line around the edges of the letters and make them all nice and smooth.  The smaller the brush, the better.  The little one I used below was perfect.

And then your letters will look nice and smooth.

Now you could allow this to dry and distress it a bit with a sander or by hand with sand paper.  I opted not to for now but may go back and do this at some point.

And now you are ready to hang it.  I used two saw tooth hangers on the back to hang the sign on the wall.

It turned out exactly the way I was hoping!  Did you spot the other change in the kitchen?  I painted the walls the same color(ish) as the cabinets.  I think it makes the kitchen look much brigher, bigger and more cohesive, less "choppy."  I say color(ish) because I didn't have enough of the cabinet paint left to cover the walls.  So I just added a bunch of Pure white Behr paint to the Dutch Boy cabinet paint.  In all honesty, I was just too darn lazy to go get more of the exact cabinet paint.  So now I have a mystery custom paint color on the walls.

Side note:  the ultimate goal is to convert all my trim to white trim.  This will definitely make the stain on the sign make more sense in that area.  Problem is, I simply cannot decide if I am going to just paint the existing trim or invest in replacing the trim with 1X4s painted white.  I would much prefer to replace it but not sure if I am willing to purchase all new wood for trim when the trim we have is fine, just not the color I want.  Decisions, decisions.  I guess you can say I am making a non-decision and doing nothing right now.  What do you think?  Replace the trim or just paint it??

This post was linked up to Thrifty Decor Chick.
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Update!!  I could not help myself and had to take my electric sander to the sign!  I was nervous I was going to completely reck it but obviously not nervous enough to not try it;)

Yup, like it even more!!