Friday, August 20, 2010

My Home Sign

Here is another of my Super Saturday samples.  This Home Sign was something I came up with after totally misunderstanding my mother-in-law's description of a craft from The Wood Connection.  Apparently she described the stand alone 2" thick wooden letters H-M-E (similar to this...)
but again, the letters H, M and E.  Then, instead of the "O" in the word "HOME", holiday shapes.
  I really don't know how it happened, but I heard...
vinyl letters and stick-on interchangeable holiday shapes. 

I caught the fire with this sign when I saw the metal at my friendly neighborhood metal supply shop.  I thought it would be so cool if the sign were made out of metal.  Then we could just attach the shapes with magnets!  We may actually go with velcro to keep the cost of the project down, unless I can find a sweet deal on the magnets :0) 
Ingredients:
Beaded plywood- 8x16
Galvanized metal-6x14
Vinyl lettering H, M and E
Various wooden shapes
Glue to attach the metal to the wood-I used E6000
Velcro or magnets to attach holiday shapes
Paint

Here are my shapes.  Oh!  I just remembered!  I never cut out the shape for January!  I will have to get on that.  I guess I was too busy making three shapes for August :0)  I made a flip flop too, but can you believe it!?!  I haven't finished it yet.  I still plan to throw on some ribbons and buttons on a couple of these, but you get the idea.
I figure the price to come in around $13 for supplies and to cover all costs. 
Not bad for a fun seasonal craft :0)

***Update***
In response to one reader's questions:
I bought my metal at Industrial Metal Supply.  They have locations in Phoenix and in California.  If you need a supply house closer to you, just search "metal supply" in Google for your area. 
I purchased "Galvanized" steel.  You MUST ask for galvanized or it will rust, must be steel-aluminum is not magnetic!!!  I ordered 24 or 26 gauge.  You can go with pretty thin metal since you are gluing it (with E6000 glue) to a wood backboard.  Be prepared to have it take 2 hours+ at the metal supply shop if you didn't call ahead to make your order.  They will want to know how many pieces you want.  The sheets of metal come in 8x4 and 10x4 foot pieces.  You buy the metal by the pound + pay a cutting fee.  I think I went with 36 metal pieces, costing me around $60 for metal and cutting fee.  The metal is cheep, the cutting fee was more than $40 of that cost. ** note** You have to keep in mind that when they cut metal, or wood for that matter, each cut takes away about 1/8" of the material.  That means that you either need to be ok with each piece being a hair short on both sides, or you need to plan that the last cut on each piece will be scrap.  That wasn't too much of a problem on the Home Sign, but with my 12x12 metal boards, I had to figure out if the extra board of metal was worth it.

OK, with all of that said, the backing was beaded plywood.  I like the look of the beadboard so I went for the higher cost.  It runs about $25 at Lowes.  You can make it a little cheaper if you use MDF.  If you get your wood at Lowes, they will rip the 4x8 sheets down to the 16" pieces for you so all you have to do is cut them down the other way 8".  **You do need to pay attention to the fact the beadboard has a lip that has to be cut off and Lowes can't do that for you**  You will know what I mean when you see it.
Home Depot will rip into strips also, but they don't have that nice button by the saw so you have to run all over the place looking for help.  I have actually decided to use Lowes for most of my wood buying now.  Their 2x4's are so much nicer, hardly needing to be sanded when making blocks and such. 

As for magnets, I ended up buying magnet by the roll at Micheals.  It was, oh...I can't quite remember. You get 3 sheets, 8 1/2x11, for between $6-8.  Madison and I tag-teamed it and bought them all with 40% off coupons so I can't remember exactly how much it cost.  I cut the magnet into 1x2" squares and we hot glued them to the back.  They are very thin.  At first I was worried if it would be strong enough to hold the shapes, but really it was great cause the shapes don't stick out too far like they would with thicker magnet.  They hold the shapes just fine.  Using the round magnets that come 50 to a pack for $6 would have added nearly $2 to the project.  Using the magnets from sheets was less than $1 each.

My friend did the vinyl. I paid her $2 a set.
As for the shapes, I cut them out of 1/8" hardboard (my new favorite since you don't really need to sand it after cutting and the fact that it paints so well-$3 a board from Home Depot). 
Making 36 kits, I used about 6.  The shapes we ended up with were a little different:
January- Snowman
Feb-Heart
March- 4 Leaf Clover
April-Easter Egg
May-Flower
June-Tie
July-Uncle Sam Hat
Aug-Watermelon
Sept- Apple
Oct-Candy Corn
Nov-Acorn
Dec-Baby in Manger
Birthday- Cupcake

Don't want to cut those out yourself?  I can cut them out for you.  I figured for my time this year and priced them just under $.50 a piece @ $5.50 a set plus USPS shipping.  If you are in Phoenix we can work out delivery or pick-up no problem.  We love a good reason to venture to the other side of the valley :0)


Please let me know if you have any more questions! 
This project was linked up HERE:
mmm buttonKeeping It Simple

7 comments:

  1. Wow, I love this sign. What an amazing way to welcome people to your home. Sometimes the best ideas come from misunderstandings.

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  2. love this, could you use those magnet sheets they make to go over vents in the hardware store to put behind the shapes? They are pretty cheap and easy to cut

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  3. That's really cute! I'm going to have to give it a try. I'm nowhere near the painter you are though. I don't know if you've already had your Super Saturday, but you can get magnets in packages of 50 in WalMart's kid craft section for $6. The ones I purchased are strong enough for the flat marble magnets, so I'm fairly certain they'd hold up if you chose to display the sign on a door.

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  4. These are adorable. Could you tell us the thickness of the metal, and where we could buy it here in Phoenix. Also how thick are the shapes, and are they made of MDF or something else.

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