mid-century-modern-house-number-sign-how-to

Finally, I’m back with another Millie’s Remodel project and this one is simple enough anyone can make it. Learn How to Make a Modern Address Number Sign and then learn my tips for hanging things on a brick wall.

DIY House Number Sign

How to Make a Modern Address Sign (and Hang it On Brick)

(I’ve included affiliate links for your convenience. I earn a small percentage from a purchase using these links. There is no additional cost to you. You can read more about affiliate links here.)

The address sign numbers at the Millie’s Remodel project were hung on the old vinyl shutters before. And if you look closely you’ll see the zero is upside down. Can you spot the other upside-down thing on this house? It must be a theme here.

As you can see, poor Millie really needed an updated address number sign. In one of my many trips to the Habitat ReStore, I scored these two modern numbers for $3 each! Given that they are usually $11 new, this was a real steal. But, I still needed the number 5. Luckily, I purchased a number 5 on Amazon.

But wait, did I screw up and order the wrong finish? Come on, you all know me better than that! I have plans to make them match with a new beautiful gold finish.

How to Repaint Metal Hardware:

Before repainting any metal hardware (numbers, handles, hinges, hooks, knobs, or other metal hardware), you need to complete a little bit of prep work. Start by lightly sanding the hardware with a fine-grit sandpaper. This will give the finish a little tooth for the paint to stick to.

Alternatively, you can use a liquid sander deglosser. Just wipe it on and then buff with a clean cloth.

Set up your numbers outside or in a well-ventilated area. Raise the numbers on shims or scraps to keep the paint from puddling underneath. I chose to use Rustoleum, Bright Coat Gold paint on these numbers.

Spray the numbers with several light coats, allowing each coat to dry before the next one. Avoid the temptation to spray a thick coverage coat, you’ll get better and longer lasting results with several thin coats.

Building a Modern Address Number Sign:

Now it’s time to build that sign. Let’s improve your curb appeal with this easy Modern Address Number Sign!

Materials:

Instructions:

Lay your numbers on a piece of 1″ x 6″ wood.

Figure out how tall you want your number sign to be. You can also make this sign with a horizontal orientation if you prefer. I chose a cedar 1″ x 6″ board (actual dimenisons are 3/4″ x 5.5″ wide by 22″ tall before adding trim).

Cut your board to size and sand off any rough edges.

To give the wood a darker mid-century modern color (and to create more contrast between the numbers and the wood) I stained the cedar plank with a combination of Pecan and Provincial stain from Minwax. After brushing the stain on, let it sit for a few minutes and then wipe off any excess with a clean dry cloth. If you want a darker stain color, repeat this process.

After the stain dries, finish your board with an exterior grade topcoat. I prefer this General Finishes top coat in flat, to allow the grain to show and downplay any glossiness.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

Adding the Numbers:

Remove the templates from the number packages. Cut, them out.

Layout the numbers and the templates on the board until you get the desired layout.

Remove the numbers and use a nail, screw (or another sharp object) to make in indent where the hardware posts are located.

These are denoted on the template as circles.

Select a drill bit the same width (or slightly smaller) than the posts. Remove the templates and drill into the board at the indents. (I use a piece of painter’s tape on my drill bit to mark the appropriate depth to drill.)

Modern-Address-Sign-Tutorial

After the holes are drilled, insert the posts into the back of the numbers.

For exterior use, you may want to add a dab of clear silicone into each hole. This will seal the hole and prevent water from seeping into the holes.

Set the numbers into the holes and gently press them into the sign.

Note: The numbers I used have a 1″ threaded area at the bottom. I ended up pushing the posts through the back of the 3/4″ board to hide the threaded area later. If you are making this sign, you might choose to use a true 1″ board, or you might want to position the frame to cover the excess post poking through the back of the sign.

How to Cut Perfect Mitered Trim:

I try to use rot-resistant materials for exterior use, therefore I chose a PVC 1″ x 2″ trim to frame the house number sign.

Start by cutting two pieces at a 45-degree angle (for one corner, cut each end at opposite angles). Set the trim onto one corner of your sign. Mark the inside corner for the opposite corner.

Line up your saw blade on that interior mark and cut. It’s better to cut it a tad long and “sneak up” on the angle. As you can see below, there’s a gap against the sign.  Simple make another mark and cut again until you get a nice tight fit.

Cut your other sides and dry fit them together around the sign. Perfect mitered corners!

Secure the trim to the sign, and then add a nail or two into each corner.

To get a beautiful corner before painting, run a bead of white caulk over each miter. Wipe off any excess.

Use an exterior grade paint to paint the trim and make it look top-notch!

To hang your modern address number sign, add D hooks to the top of the back of the sign.

2 Ways to Hang Things on a Brick Wall:

Watch my video to learn the easiest way to hang something on brick.

This street number sign is the perfect amount of modern Millie needed.

Well well, I’d say this was a huge improvement. Miss Millie is certainly looking much better!

I’ll share how to build those modern shutters in the near future. Stay tuned.

Let’s add a little hand-lettered touch to your front door with this adorable wooden fall pumpkin sign that you can make in no time!

How to Make a Hand-Lettered Fall Pumpkin Sign

Hi, it’s Amanda from Domestically Creative again with another easy DIY project. Today I’m sharing how I made this adorable hand-lettered pumpkin sign that hangs on our front door for fall. Don’t let all of the steps and photos scare you away from making your own fall pumpkin sign! This project is very simple and only took me about 15 minutes to make. Heat up your glue gun and let’s get started!

Overhead view of supplies

Materials:

Instructions:

Step 1 – Create the design

The first step is to create a hand-lettered design for this fall pumpkin sign. You can create it in one of two ways. If you feel confident enough to hand-letter your own design, draw it out on a sheet of paper to the same size it will be on the pumpkin. If you are doubting your artistic lettering skills, create a digital design using fonts on your computer and print it out to the right size. Either way will work for this simple fall door decor.

"hello fall" hand-lettered design

Step 2 – Transfer the design

Turn the paper over and shade over the back with a pencil. Aim for dark and full coverage so that the graphite can transfer in the next step.

shading over back of design with pencil

Flip the paper back over and place it on top of the wooden pumpkin. Using a pencil, trace over the design using firm pressure. This will transfer the design onto your pumpkin!

tracing over design with pencil to transfer onto pumpkin

When you pull up the paper, you should be left with a light pencil outline of your design.

close up of transferred "hello fall" design on pumpkin

This is the same method used in this reversible pedestal sign!

Step 3 – Paint on the design

Using an oil-based paint marker, go over the design, and fill in any necessary areas. Since this fall pumpkin sign will be hanging on the front door, using oil-based paint will protect it from fading or running.

white wooden pumpkin with hello fall written on it

Step 4 – Make the bow

Tie a simple two-loop bow with a wired edge ribbon, just like tying your shoes! Fluff up the loops and center knot of the bow until it looks nice and full.

buffalo check bow next to pumpkin sign

Optional Step: Fold the tails of the bow in half length-wise. Use scissors to cut out a triangle from the wired edge at the bottom of the tail.

Step 5 – Attach the bow

Attach your bow to the pumpkin with some hot glue. Another option is to use a thin gauge wire and wrap that around the stem of the pumpkin. Either way will work!

Step 6 – Attach a ribbon for hanging

Since this fall pumpkin sign will be hanging on the front door, I added a small ribbon to the back of it using a staple gun. First, cut a piece of ribbon slightly longer than the width of your pumpkin.

staple gun attaching ribbon to hang pumpkin sign

Then staple one end of the ribbon to just inside the left edge of the pumpkin. Repeat this for the other side and end of the ribbon. You will be left with a loop in the middle to hang your new pumpkin sign from.

Overview of stapled on ribbon to the back of wooden pumpkin

Step 7 – Hang on the front door

You’re finished! Hang up your new fall pumpkin sign on the front door (or any place in your home) and enjoy!

Finished hello fall pumpkin sign with buffalo check ribbon hanging on blue front door

What design will you put on your own hand-lettered fall pumpkin sign?

Love it? Don’t forget to pin this project for later!

I’m Amanda, and I am the creator and voice behind the food and DIY blog, Domestically Creative. What started as a place to share updates with friends and family after we moved from Illinois to Tennessee and then to Texas, turned into a passion for finding creative and frugal ways to feed us and decorate our homes.

I have always had the “make it myself” attitude and I’m not afraid to bust out the power tools or get creative when it comes to decorating our home on a budget. You can usually find me scouring the local thrift stores, garage sales and estate sales looking for my next makeover (like this litter box cabinet), or dreaming up ways to make our new house feel more like home. My most recent project was giving my home office a much needed facelift. Some of the plans included creating a fun inspirational accent wall and adding pegboard to store my craft hoards.

I currently call Missouri home, where I live with my husband, dog, and 2 cats in a pretty dull, late 90’s split level. My husband and I both love to travel the U.S and recently purchased a small travel trailer to tag along in our journeys. In our free time together we can usually be found working together on a home project, exploring a new place, or just lounging with our pup, Delilah.

I’d love for you to connect with me on social media via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter!

See all of Amanda’s tutorials HERE.

I’m back with another watercolor flower painting tutorial. Learn how to paint lavender (an easy flower to paint!)

How to Paint Watercolor Lavender

How to Paint Watercolor Lavender

I thought it would be fun to continue on with our watercolor summer flower tutorials! Last month, I taught you how to paint pretty pink peonies. For this month’s tutorial, you’ll be learning how to paint an even easier flower – lavender!

Lavender was one of the first flowers I attempted to paint when I started with watercolors. It’s literally a few straight-line stems and some stippled brush dots and you’re done. I’ll give you all the details below.

Let’s get to it!

Use watercolor and watercolor brushes and paper to create your watercolor painted flowers

Materials:

(I’ve included affiliate links for your convenience. I earn a small percentage from a purchase using these links. There is no additional cost to you. You can read more about affiliate links here.)

Instructions:

Let’s make some lavender!  Once you get the hang of these flowers, feel free to use different colors.  Let your imagination be your guide.

Step 1: Create the stem

paint a stem using a small watercolor brush

I’m using a small brush here and a brownish-black color. (Feel free to add some green if you like.) Use the tip of the brush to create a series of lines all coming to a single point at the bottom, like a stem. If your stem ends up too light, just add more watercolor paint and go over the line again.

Step 2: Create the lavender petals

Use a small and medium size brush to create your watercolor lavender

create a series of stippled marks to make the lavender

Remember when I said these are one of the easiest flowers to paint? You won’t even believe this!

All you need to do is grab a medium-size brush. Add a little purple watercolor paint. Using the side of the brush, dot it along each stem (called stippling in the art world). Start narrow at the top and go a little wider towards the bottom. You’ll start to see the makings of your lavender! Imperfection is good here.

Step 3: Add some dimension

Watercolor painted lavender

Now we want to add in a little dimension. Load up your brush with dark purple or blue watercolor paint on your brush. Create more stippled side brush marks as we did in Step 2. This will darken your lavender and create some depth.

Another variation that you can create is a bushy lavender plant. Instead of starting with a stem, create a series of green lines as your lavender bush. Paint the watercolor lavender at the tops of these lines. Then darken the bottom of the plant with a darker green to create some depth.

Create stippled marks for lavender using the side of your brush

Your finished watercolor painted lavender plants!

And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial for painting watercolor lavender.

Next month, I’ll show you another watercolor tutorial. Pretty soon, we’ll put together all our flowers into one giant piece of floral art ready for framing. See you next month!

karen signature

See More of Karen’s Tutorials ~


karen from decor hintHello!  I’m Karen, the creator of the Home Decor and DIY Blog: Decor Hint. I’m a Native of the East Coast, but I currently live in beautiful Seattle with my hubby, our two wonderful children, and our spunky wheaten terrier.

You can usually find me with some sort of craft in one hand and a coffee in the other. And I’m always rearranging furniture or moving lamps from room to room. I have a passion (read: obsession) for decorating, DIY, and gardening. In short, I love making my house into a home.

Like many, I’m inspired by what I see in home decor magazines, but I’m not so inspired by the price tags.  Consequently, I love finding and creating beautiful budget-friendly home decor items. In a head to head competition, I bet you’d never know the difference between the designer items and my DIY creations!  Many of my DIY projects focus on sewing, crafting, upcycling and organizing. Some of my favorite projects have been making pretty wreaths, sewing my own tassel hand towels, and crafting these trendy wood bead garlands. I can’t wait to inspire you and spark your creativity through my DIY projects.

You can always connect with me on Pinterest, Twitter or Instagram.

Today I’m showing you how to add some greenery to your home in the form of these cute hand-lettered mini chalkboard planters. You can plant any type of plant you wish, but cacti and succulents would be my choice!

Hand lettered mini chalkboard planters

Hand-Lettered Mini Chalkboard Planters

Hey there, It’s Amanda from Domestically Creative back again with another simple DIY project. Today we’re making these adorable hand-lettered mini chalkboard pots! I’m including two different methods for making these planters. This project is intended for indoor use, but I’ll include steps to use (and materials) for outdoor use as well. It may seem like a silly thing to state, but chalkboard paint and chalk marker will fade, crack, and peel when exposed to the elements. You may be thinking to yourself, why even use chalkboard paint and marker, to begin with? Well, the whole point of a chalkboard is that you can change it! Let me show you how to make your own hand-lettered mini chalkboard planters.

3 hand lettered chalkboard planters with various succulents and cacti

Materials:

(I’ve included affiliate links for your convenience. I earn a small percentage from a purchase using these links. There is no additional cost to you. You can read more about affiliate links here.)

Instructions:

Step 1. Cleaning terracotta pots

Before painting each terracotta pot, it’s essential to clean them well. Just use soap and water and rinse. Let the clay pots dry completely before moving on to the next step.

freshly washed terracotta pots ready for paint

Step 2. Painting terracotta pots

Give the outside of each pot 2-3 coats of chalkboard paint, letting it dry in between coats. If the surface feels rough to the touch, lightly sand with 320 grit sandpaper in between coats. Don’t paint the inside of the pot.

chalkboard paint clay pots

Step 3. Prep the chalkboard surface

This step may not seem important, but it is! If you ever want to change up your chalkboard designs or lettering then you always want to season a new chalkboard surface before use. To do this, take a piece of chalk (using the side of the chalk), cover the entire surface in chalk.

prepping chalkboard pot surface with chalk

Wipe the chalk off with an eraser or a dry cloth. You’ll be left with a surface that looks like it’s been used! This helps prevent ghosting, which is what happens when you erase chalk or chalk marker and are left with an outline of what was there.

prepped chalkboard surface of pots

Step 4. Personalize with chalk marker

Now it’s time to have some fun! Practice your hand-lettering skills with a chalk marker and personalize the pots however you wish! These pots feature the words “grow”, “stay alive”, and “don’t succ” since I knew I’d be planting cacti and succulents.

lettering "grow" on chalkboard planter

Tips for hand lettering:

Practice on a piece of paper first to get the size and layout just right. Pick the marker up after each stroke of the letter, which is a different concept than what you learn with cursive. If desired, go back in and thicken up the downstrokes to create a brush lettered look!

If you are interested in learning more about hand-lettering, check out my blog Designs by Amanda Kay for free practice sheets and tutorials!

hand lettered pots finished

Step 5. Plant!

If you are going to be planting succulents or cacti in your mini chalkboard pots, be sure to use an appropriate potting soil! Fill about 3/4 of the way up with soil, tuck in each plant, and then fill in with soil around the roots. Water lightly and place them in a sunny area in your home.

top down view of succulent in planter on decorative plate

Using These Chalkboard Pots Outdoors?

The steps will be similar, but the products used will vary. First, you’ll want to choose an outdoor acrylic paint instead of chalkboard paint. Outdoor acrylic will hold up to weather better, and won’t fade when sealed. There will be no need to prep the surface with chalk, so just skip that step! Use an oil-based paint marker for lettering (water-based markers or chalk markers will fade in the sun or run in the rain).

One important extra step is applying a sealant. Using a polycrylic top coat will protect the paint from cracking, chipping, and fading in the sun. Keep in mind that the terracotta pots will lose their moisture-wicking capabilities when painted and sealed.

close up of stay alive planter with cactus

My mini chalkboard planters live in my office where the plants get plenty of light throughout the day! Plus they add a nice touch of greenery to my creative space.

mini chalkboard pots in craft room

What part of your home could use a set of these hand-lettered chalkboard planters?

Love this tutorial? Don’t forget to pin for later!

I’m Amanda, and I am the creator and voice behind the food and DIY blog, Domestically Creative. What started as a place to share updates with friends and family after we moved from Illinois to Tennessee and then to Texas, turned into a passion for finding creative and frugal ways to feed us and decorate our homes.

I have always had the “make it myself” attitude and I’m not afraid to bust out the power tools or get creative when it comes to decorating our home on a budget. You can usually find me scouring the local thrift stores, garage sales and estate sales looking for my next makeover (like this litter box cabinet), or dreaming up ways to make our new house feel more like home. My most recent project was giving my home office a much needed facelift. Some of the plans included creating a fun inspirational accent wall and adding pegboard to store my craft hoards.

I currently call Missouri home, where I live with my husband, dog, and 2 cats in a pretty dull, late 90’s split level. My husband and I both love to travel the U.S and recently purchased a small travel trailer to tag along in our journeys. In our free time together we can usually be found working together on a home project, exploring a new place, or just lounging with our pup, Delilah.

I’d love for you to connect with me on social media via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter!

See all of Amanda’s tutorials HERE.

Modern wreaths are beautiful and simple in nature. Learn how to make your own DIY modern floral wreath and let me share how I saved money on flowers!

DIY Modern Floral WreathDIY Modern Floral Wreath

Originally I wanted this to be a spring wreath, but well…it’s summer now isn’t it? But, this wreath can still rock the spring and summer look.

I found this flower garland on clearance and decided it would be a more cost effective than buying lots of floral stems.

Materials:

(I’ve included affiliate links for your convenience. I earn a small percentage from a purchase using these links. There is no additional cost to you. You can read more about affiliate links here.)

Instructions:

Watch the video to make your own DIY Modern Floral Wreath or scroll down for the step-by-step instructions.

 

Gather your supplies (listed above.)

Use good wire cutting pliers to remove the flowers you want to use from a garland (or clip off the stems from your flowers.) Lay your ring on your work surface.

Layout some greenery as a base for the shape of your wreath.

Then fill with large and medium-size flowers.

Arrange and tuck in some smaller flowers to fill out the wreath.

To attach the flowers to the wreath use floral wire. You will probably want to wear garden gloves for this. I started out without the gloves and ended up drawing blood unnecessarily (live and learn, right?)

Twist the floral wire around each stem until it’s secured. Continue attaching flowers to the ring until all the flowers are secured.

You can use a ribbon to hang your wreath, but I like to use fishing line for a less frilly appearance.

Hang your wreath on the door, a wall, or anywhere you need to bring some Spring or Summer cheer!

Did you like this simple wreath? If so, you’ll love Karen’s Simple Fall Wreath. It’s so simple to make, you can create one for every season!