In this post, I’ll show you how to make easy hand lettered signs – and you don’t need good handwriting!
I have an art problem. It’s a collection problem – I just love collecting it! When we moved to New York, we had a slightly crazy number of boxes labeled “art and decor.” I have a special soft spot for hand lettered signs. Whenever I go to craft fairs, or even Hobby Lobby, I want to buy ALL the farmhouse signs. Anyone else raising their hand?!
After one such craft fair, I realized I had a stash of perfectly sized scraps of wood. With a couple of inexpensive canvases I picked up on sale, by trial and error, I figured out how to create my own hand-lettered signs, without learning calligraphy!
You Will Need:
- A canvas (This is almost exactly what I used) or scraps of wood
- A piece of balsa wood long enough to go all the way around the edge of your canvas
- Wood stain (or brown watercolors!)
- Sharpie paint pens
- A hot glue gun
- Chalkboard paint, or white paint (I did one of each)
Step 1: Prepare the frame and the canvas.
Paint your canvas white or black and let it fully dry.
Measure strips of balsa wood long enough to frame your canvas. Mine are about an inch and a half wide. Stain these, and set them aside to dry. My home-made stain didn’t work, so I actually watered down some brown watercolor paints, mixed in a little black at points, and painted it on for a rustic effect.
Step 2: Create your lettering template.
I downloaded some free script fonts to make the hand-lettering. Here’s what I used:
Type your phrase into a Word document, adjusting the margin as needed, and print it out. If you’re making a really big sign, this will still work – you’ll just print out multiple pages and trim and tape them together as needed to make your template.
Step 3: Outline your letters.
Flip your printed sheet over, and use the side of a piece of chalk to cover the back of the paper. Use a color that will show up!
Carefully flip your template over onto your canvas. Using a pen, trace around the outline of all the letters, pressing hard. This will leave a chalk outline on your canvas.
Step 4: Fill in your outline.
Using your paint pen (I used white on the black background, and black on the white) fill in the outline. Take your time!
Step 6: Finishing Touches
Let your paint dry, and then brush off the chalk.
Hot glue your wood pieces around the edge to create the farmhouse look, or frame it, or even, display the canvas as is.
I think the effect is best using the thicker script fonts, but I love how they all turned out!
Here’s my signs in use in our old house in Arizona: 
And in New York:
If you made one of these signs, what would it say? Let me know in the comments below! Save this post on Pinterest to make later!
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