A fun way to spruce up a garden area is to add a homemade sign or two. These DIY garden signs have a rustic styling that is hard to resist.
DIY Garden Signs
Rustic Sign Materials:
Think of any old wood to use as a base for your sign. Things like barn wood, salvaged wood, drift wood or even old canoe paddles make great material. Paint is the obvious choice for creating your sign art. However, letters can also be formed with objects. Branches, old rulers, or scrap metal are good to use for forming rustic letters. Since the completed sign will be outdoors, it is necessary to coat the whole thing in polyurethane.
I once made a sign with both an old canoe paddle and some branches for our cabin.
You could create a sign like this, for a garden, to welcome or label some plantings.
Rustic Garden Sign Inspiration
Another great idea for a DIY garden sign is to use a slice of wood from a log. Just choose a log in the diameter that you want for your sign. You can also buy wood slabs from pretty much any craft store. To create your letters, you can use paint or one of the materials mentioned. However, a fun thing to try is wood burning. You can do this either free hand or use a stencil. Again, coat the entire finished sign in polyurethane when finished.
An example of this type of rustic sign is found at Home Beautifully.
I talked about forming letters out of scrap metal but you can also embellish a garden sign with vintage metal accessories. An embellished sign is a great way to display your vintage garden tools. I found an example of this type of sign at One Life To Love.
What do you do when you have a large tree in the middle of your garden? You fill it with signs! Using a variety of salvaged wood and some fun letter stencils, you can paint several signs. Then, just attach them all to a big tree and you have a fun and whimsical display. I was inspired by this sign display from The Summery Umbrella.
