Vintage Patio Sign

This tutorial for a Vintage Patio Sign is my project for this month's Thrifty Style Team.

And...super fun news, y'all...our team is growing by leaps and bounds.

The projects are all AMAZING. Prepare for inspiration!

Vintage Patio Sign | Old board turned into a fun, LIFE IS GOOD Vintage Patio Sign

This vintage patio sign was somewhat of a filler for our newly made-over patio. I had this empty corner that needed some vertical eye candy and I had nothin'. There were these two boards in our garage from our boys' old bunk beds (sniff, sniff). These boards basically went under the mattresses to keep the bed from sinking through the slats and being too soft. So the boards weren't fancy. But I haven't been able to bring myself to part with the bunk bed set, itself...it was such a big part of our life for so long. So, piece by piece, I seem to be randomly repurposing that thing. Check out the vintage patio sign I made from one of those boards below.

Be sure to check out all of our team's fantastic projects at the bottom of this post.

The words on this sign have another sweet meaning for us. A few years ago, we were a part of a really tight-knit Life Group at the church we attended. Several of the teens of the group developed this code word when everything was going well in their lives..."LIG". When doing praises and prayer requests, some of these kiddos would simply say "Gotta LIG". That was code for Life Is Good. LIGs were pretty cool, y'all. That group has moved here and there (we live in a military community) and most of those kids are in college (or grown) at this point. But, I always remember them mentioning their LIGs. I wanted to make a sign with our LIG saying on it...and what better spot than a patio. Because on a patio...life IS good, right?

Check out my Life Is Good Vintage Patio Sign below.

Again, started with our old "bed board" from one of the bunk beds.
It's a really old and bumpy board...no frills here.

I painted one coat of light red chalk-style paint as a base coat (or letter color) on the board. I used vinyl I cut from my Silhouette machine for the lettering and laid it on top of the paint once it was dry. I turned the IS just to be different.

If you look closely, the lettering is slightly crooked.
I'm just chalking that up to character, y'all. Wink.

I actually went over the vinyl with more of the same red chalk-style paint to "seal" the edges of the vinyl since it was such a rough board I was working with. This way the aqua color wouldn't bleed through the lettering at all. I used my trusty wax puck along the edges of the board...this is a fun way to weather a piece a bit. The wax creates a small barrier where some of the paint won't stick as well...makes it easy to sand off in the weathering process. You can use the side of a taper candle in the same manner.

I went over the whole piece in my favorite POOL color in Waverly's Chalk-Style paint.

I pulled off the vinyl and sanded the edges of the sign.
I sealed it with a clear varnish to prevent further weathering.

The yellow pot stock pot makeover was my project from last month's Thrifty Style Team. Click here for that project. And the little purple can is one of the pieces from my Tin Can Fence Garden.

You can see above where the sign has filled in my empty spot on my patio.

We made this table from an old door and plumbing pipe (click here for the complete tutorial). And click here to see all of the photos from our entire colorful patio makeover.

Be sure and check out all of my friends' posts below>>>