DIY Halloween Countdown Sign For Your Front Porch

by | Jul 10, 2014

Here’s a clever idea for your front porch. The sign reads, “It’s all about the CANDY” with two clip boards used for the numbers you’ll be changing daily counting down the days until Halloween or Trick and Treating. This should get the neighborhood kids excited as they walk by on their way to school in the morning and the whole neighborhood as well. It’s a reminder of how many more days they have to get their decorations up or to stock up on candy. Or prepare for their Halloween Party. Oh, my goodness what to wear?

You can use pallet wood or fence wood, cut 2 1/2 feet long for each part of your sign that you’ll nail to two 7 foot long 2″x2″ posts.

For the kids it may all be about the candy and this sign works quite nicely, but it is Halloween and I’m sure you can come up with some spooky sayings to go along with your countdown sign. Maybe to do with witches flying around in the night sky or something about ghosts . . . pumpkins and carving jack-o-lanterns or getting your costume . . . there are several original directions you can go with this project.

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This image of the front porch Countdown Sign is compliments of http://www.cornerhouseblog.com I like the bottom display with pumpkins, the skull and hanging skeletons and is that a raven?

The more involved you get with the lettering the more you’ll realize the need for a Silhouette CAMEO Electronic Craft Cutter Deluxe Bundle – Vinyl + Tools to cut out the stencils you’ll be using for your sign. And then you can paint over this one and do something clever for Christmas. For me, it’s all about recycling what I make to use for other holidays. Once you make it, it can be used again instead of just storing it in the garage. For me, it’s not something I would use again next year. My neighbors expect something new.

Besides the pallet boards or fence boards and the two 2″x2″ posts, you’ll want some white paint and use it as a wash over your boards. To make a wash you add water to the white paint so it’s runny and does a light coloring to the wood. You can distress the wood by hitting it with the back of the hammer or the garden tools you have around. Just to mark up the wood so it doesn’t look new.

I use butcher paper to lay out my design to figure out how many boards I need and how I’m going to place everything on the sign. In this sign there were candy corns.

Once you have this all worked out, you’re ready to nail the boards to the posts using 2 to 4 nails for each. Then put down your stencils and paint them using a foam paint brush for dobbing the paint inside the stenciled letters. You’ll also need a variety of paints you can use for this project. I also have a drop cloth on my patio so I don’t leave evidence of this or other projects.

Once the sign is done and while it’s drying you can get to work on the display that’s going to be on the porch to help hold the sign in place and to add some Halloween color.

I forgot the clipboards and the numbers you can print out on your computer, but I’m sure you already figured that part out.

As I said earlier, this is a clever idea that you can use with the saying of this project or work out one of your own.

DIY Halloween Sign Post To Set In Your Yard

by | Jul 9, 2014

This is an excellent DIY Halloween project that is fun to make and will be the envy of the neighborhood.

This project is courtesy of http://www.burtonavenue.blogspot.com

Here are some Halloween fonts you may like to use for unique lettering of your signs:

Sketch Bones  Ghoulish  Head Hunter  Pumpkins  Along Came a Spider  Horrible Squish  Pumpkin Face  Jackie O’Lantern  Frankentoho  Halloween Spider  Belfry  You Murderer  Wild Wood   Bleeding Freaks  Nightmare  Blood of Dracula  Skullphabet  Haunting Attraction  Bloody Slime  Jack-O-Lantern

For this project you’ll need:

  • pallet wood to make the signs
  • various colors of paint for your signs
  • a 2″x4″ sign post

Each sign is not of uniform length to make each sign unique. You’ll want to place them at angles to make the sign post attractive and eye catching. You’ll want to paint the 2″x4″ post and allow to dry before attaching the signs and placing it into the ground. It’s a nice touch to put rocks around the bottom.

Each piece of pallet wood is cut at different lengths with one end cut into a point to indicate if that particular street, circle, drive, boulevard, court, avenue, way, road, alley or highway is to the right or to the left. Just as a rule of thumb for this project, but the pallet in half, but don’t measure to make the lengths vary as will the lettering on the signs. For longer sign names, you may not need to cut the pallet other than to make the point.

You will want to sand any rough edges to keep from getting splinters and for easier painting. The edges are painted black on each sign — you may also want to paint the post black.

I would get my names of the various signs together and select my fonts, cut out the lettering and place it on the pallet before cutting.

The easiest way to do the signs is to paint the pallet piece, make a stencil out of vinyl for the lettering, secure it to the pallet and paint the inside of the stencil.

Making vinyl stencils may be difficult for many to do and very time consuming, especially if you are to make many different signs. That may be why you should start your projects early or get a little help with a die cutting machine. One very popular and versatile one is Silhouette Cameo. It may be a bit pricey, but if you’re going to do a lot of craft projects for holidays and special occasions, this die cutting machine is a “must have” item.

This is a fun and rewarding project. This one is specifically for Halloween, but you can adapt the concept for other holidays.