After the DIY night at AR Workshop I learned a few tricks about using stencil vinyl (way easier than using scrap, regular vinyl btw) and was looking for a new project to test my new knowledge out on. Well that project came to me in the form of my sister’s friend who was looking for a wooden sign with her wedding scripture on it as a gift to her husband for their 5th anniversary. I told her I’d never done something like that before, but I was up to figure it out!

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Stenciled Wooden Sign

What you’ll need:

• 12″ x 36″ wooden sign
• Cricut Maker
• Stencil vinyl
• Weeder tool
• Transfer paper
• Scraper tool
• Mod Podge
• Foam sponge brush
• White acrylic paint

The first thing was to come up with the design.  I opened Design Space and came up with an initial design based on what Taylor wanted, tweaked it a little from feedback and had my design!

If you use a script font like I did for ‘joyful,’ patient’ and ‘faithful’ you’ll need to weld the letters together so they become 1 image instead of separate cut letters.  Select all the letters and click the ‘weld’ button in the bottom right menu.

When the design was ready, I was ready to cut.  This design was made to fit a 12″ x 36″ wooden sign, so I wasn’t going to be able to cut out 1 large design and cut the words separately on my stencil vinyl instead.  Load the stencil vinyl on your standard mat, select ‘Stencil vinyl’ as the material option (under the vinyl section) and cut on your Cricut!

 PS – Cricut is offering 40% off Seasonal Materials and 10% off Air 2 or Air machine (includes bundles) + free shipping with code: OCTOBAIR right now.

When everything is cut, you’ll need to weed the project with your weeder tool.  Since I was painting the stenciled design on the wood you need to weed out the words from the stencil (where the paint will go), until other vinyl projects where you weed the excess. To make the transferring of the design easy you’ll put transfer paper on top of the stencil.  This keeps things like the inside of an O in place.  Use your scraper tool to make sure the transfer paper is on the stencil vinyl well.

I didn’t have any transfer paper on hand at the time so used painter’s tape instead.  It worked, but was much easier when I used transfer tape at AR workshop. Next you’ll remove the blue backing from the vinyl and adhere it on the wood.  Since I cut my design in pieces, I laid it out first so I knew where to put everything.  When everything is adhered, you’ll slowly remove the transfer tape (painter’s tape), again making sure that the stencil vinyl stays attached to the wood. The next step is a trick I learned to help keep super crisp paint lines is to apply mod podge on the edges of the letters with your foam brush.  This helps seal the stencil vinyl so no paint will bleed underneath.

Wait for the mod podge to dry and then it’s finally time to paint!  Wash your foam brush and use it again to dab the white paint onto the stencil.  Since almost all of my words were cut separate, I also had to make sure none of the paint got off the stencil vinyl onto the wood. The most satisfying part of the process is peeling back the vinyl when the paint is completely dry.  Use your weeder to get any of the smaller pieces in the middle of letters.

I had to touch up a few spots where the crease between the 2 boards was, but other than that the sign was done!

I liked how much this turned out that I’ve decided to make one for our master bedroom with a lyric from our first dance of our wedding.  Here’s to another type of project under my belt!