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Learn how to make a wood sign with your Cricut maker and a vinyl stencil in today’s video & step-by-step tutorial. This custom wood sign is easy and fun to make, and the options for stain and paint colours are endless. Let’s create a custom piece of art for your home!

I had a vision to create a wooden sign for the hallway in Our Little Lake House rental. Large DIY wood signs add a vibe to a space that I love. I knew it would be the perfect way to welcome people to their home away from home for the weekend.

The Cricut is the perfect machine to make wooden signs with. Cricut vinyl is so easy to work with, and so is Cricut Design Space! So let me share with you how I made my sign.  Keep in mind that you can change almost anything you want about the design, the colours, and the base you use for the sign itself to fit your own personal style.   

Are you interested in learning more about the Cricut machine? Not sure which machine is right for you? Check out this post!

Watch my YouTube video below to learn how to make your own DIY wooden sign with Cricut:

Disclosure: The following video is sponsored by Cricut.

How to make a wood sign with Cricut:

Materials:

• A piece of 1/2″ thick plywood that’s the desired size of your sign minus the frame
• Enough 1 x 2 lumber  to cover the perimeter of your sign (This is your frame.)
• Wood stain and/or paint (Do what you want for this step!)
• Stencil vinyl
• Mod Podge

Tools:

• A Cricut cutting machine (I’m using my Cricut Explore Air 2)
• Mitre saw
• Small paint brushes 
• Finishing nail gun & finishing nails
• Fine grit sanding sponge (optional)

Instructions:

Making the sign

1. The first step is to start with the piece of 1/2″ plywood that is the desired size of your sign (minus the frame). I was able to reuse a piece of wood shelving from our lake house rental that was a great size for a sign. You can cut plywood yourself with a table saw, or have a piece cut for you at your local home improvement store.
2. Then, you can paint or stain your plywood any colour you’d like. Pro tip: paint the plywood a solid colour for your first sign so that you can easily make any touch-ups at the end. For my sign, I created a DIY whitewash with one part white chalk paint to one part water and lightly brushed that on my plywood. Wiping the diluted white paint off right after applying it created a stained effect that let my wood grain show through. I love it!
3. Next, measure the vertical ends of your plywood and cut two 1 x 2 pieces of lumber at that length with a mitre saw. My sign was 16″ tall and I used spruce wood from The Home Depot.
4. Now, measure the lengths of the top and bottom edges of your sign and add the width of the two side frame pieces to that measurement. My sign was 42″ long, and my two side frame pieces were 3/4″ wide each, so my measurement was 42 + 3/4 + 3/4 = 43 1/2″. With a mitre saw, I cut two pieces of the 1 x 2 lumber to this length.
5. If you wish, you can stain or paint your frame pieces and let them dry. I used the stain colour Provincial for my frame pieces. You can also leave the natural wood or paint your frame too! Whatever you like.
6. After your sign pieces dry,  prepare to glue and nail on the frame. You have two choices. You can either put the frame on so the back of it is flush with the back of the sign (which means the frame will stick out farther than the sign), or you can raise the plywood up a little with scrap pieces of wood so there is more frame sticking out the back of the sign than in front of it. I’m choosing to do the latter for my sign so that I can hang it from the wall off of the frame. If you like the first option, you can screw some D-ring hangers onto the back of your sign to hang it.
7. Next, apply wood glue to the outside edges of your plywood. Position your frame pieces around your plywood, and use a finishing nailer to nail them firmly in place. Be careful to aim the nail gun into the center of the plywood so that the nails don’t show on the front or back of the sign. If you do have a nail go through, you can try hammering it gently back into place and touching up the paint where it came through. If you plan on distressing your sign like I did, it might just add to the look!

Creating the stencil design

1. While your sign is drying, you can create your sign design in Cricut Design Space. Create a New Project, and then use the shape tool to create a rectangle that’s the same size as your sign for reference. Now, you can play with Cricut’s fonts to make a sign that’s perfect for your space. I used the fonts Tango and Rockwell to make my design. You can also play with the letter spacing and line spacing to make your words look exactly the way you want them to.
2. Once you have a design that you like, make sure to group all of the words together using the Attach tool on the bottom right. I’m attaching the letters of each word together, but not the entire design. That way I can fit the entire large design on a 12 x 24 Cricut cutting mat.
3. The next step is to click “Make It” to send your design to your Cricut machine. At this point, you can adjust where you want each word to sit on your mat to create your stencil. You can either choose to cut out a permanent vinyl design and apply that directly to your sign, or you can do what I did for this sign and make a stencil with Cricut stencil vinyl and then paint your letters on it. I like the stenciled look for something a little more rustic like the particular sign I had in mind when I was planning this project.

Stenciling the design onto the sign

1. Use Cricut’s stencil vinyl and attach it to your mat. I’m using a fabric mat because it’s the only one I have in the larger 12 x 24 size, but I’d recommend using the regular mat instead. Choose the “Custom” setting on your Cricut machine, and then search for the “Stencil Vinyl” on Design Space. This will tell your machine exactly what pressure to cut to get the perfect result on your stencil vinyl.
2. Now, press Go and your Cricut will cut your stencil. You can just sit back, relax and watch the magic happen!
3. Once your cut is complete, remove the vinyl from the mat. I like to cut each word out individually. Use your weeding tool to weed away the excess vinyl of the letters so that only the stencil remains. If you choose to do the opposite with smart vinyl or the like and keep the letters, you will leave the letters and weed away the vinyl that surrounds them instead.
4. Next, cut some transfer tape that’s the same size as your first stencil piece and smooth it over top of the vinyl. Transfer tape will help transfer your stencil perfectly to your plywood and keep all the smaller sections like the insides of letters in the right place.
5. Refer to your design and mark out the center of your sign on the plywood with a pencil, and then determine where each stencil piece needs to be. This is a little bit fiddly but well worth the time it takes to get it right.
6. Now, carefully remove the stencil attached to the transfer tape from its backing and press it in place on your wooden sign. Smooth it down onto the sign with Cricut’s tool or a craft stick. (A credit card is also considered one of my essential tools for this kind of thing if I’m honest.) And then, carefully pull away the transfer tape. Repeat this process with the other stencil pieces until they’re all in place. I like to reuse my transfer tape for each piece of my stencil so I’m not creating excess waste. You can use scraps of stencil vinyl too if you want to cover more areas of your sign for painting.
7. Now, here’s my secret to preventing lots of bleed-through: brush a thin layer of decoupage medium over the stencil before you paint it. This adds a little layer between your wooden sign and the paint. You’ll get a cleaner edge on your letters. I used Mod Podge for this step.
8. After the decoupage medium has dried, carefully brush on 1-2 coats of paint, letting the first coat dry before painting the second. I’m using acrylic paint, but you could use your favourite kind of paint instead. I used black paint for the ultimate contrast with the white background.
9. Once the paint is dry, it’s time for my favourite part of the whole operation! Carefully remove the stencil vinyl to reveal your design. I was really happy with how crisp my letters looked on this sign. There were a couple of little bleed-through areas, but I was able to touch those up with some paint.
10. The last step I took was completely optional. Now, you can leave your sign the way it is, but I decided I wanted to make mine look a little more vintage by distressing it. To distress your wooden sign, take some fine sandpaper and sand over the letters. Then, use a soft cloth to wipe away any dust at the end. This is an especially good idea if you have trouble with bleeding letters. Distressing the sign makes that look deliberate!

And, you’re done! This is one of my favourite DIY signs, and I love the way it turned out. I think it will be a perfect welcome sign for everyone who stays at our Little Lake House, and because of its classic font and colours, it will go with whatever style or accessories I choose for the rest of the hallway. 

Have you made a DIY sign with Cricut? I would love to see it! Tag me @thediymommy or comment below to show me your creations.

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Enjoy sign-making! Would you like to stay at the Little Lake House? You can book your stay here!

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