Autumn Wood Sign Tutorial

It’s harvest time and one way to celebrate autumn is to paint a sign to display with your pumpkins and corn. I created a homemade stencil by cutting a design from a plastic divider with my wood burning tool. Watch my tutorial below to see how I used Rapid Resizer to make this fall project.

What you’ll need:

• painting tape or other type of low tack tape

• plastic divider or Mylar sheet

• wood burning tool, stencil burning tool, or x-acto knife

• foam wedge (the kind used for cosmetics) or a foam stencil brush

• a pane of glass with the edges taped (you can use one from an old picture frame, I picked one up at the thrift shop)

• acrylic paint

• thin paint brush

I uploaded this image to Rapid Resizer from Pixabay where you can find images that are free for personal or commercial use. You can download it from the source here.

Then I used the erase tool on the Draw a Design page to remove the word ‘fall’, and I also erased parts of the leaf stems so that the leaf wreath would not form a total circle. When you are making a stencil if the circle is enclosed then everything in the center will fall to the floor when you cut it out! The erase tool is useful for turning a regular design into one that can work as a stencil. So then my image looked like this:

Next I added the phrase ‘Harvest Blessings’ with a stencil font called Stardos Stencil Regular from the Rapid Resizer font list.

I printed out the image in black and white on two pages, and cut off the borders and taped them together.

I taped the printout to my work surface and then placed the pane of glass on top.

Then I taped the plastic divider (just the kind from a school binder) to the glass so that the heating tool would not burn the printout. If you would like a sturdier stencil then you can use a Mylar sheet (the non-adhesive type) which you can get at a craft supply shop.

Next I used my wood burning tool to trace the shapes and words of the stencil. Remove each piece as you burn it or it may re-attach to the divider as it cools.

Then I used a foam wedge to dab the paint on using a straight up-and-down motion. A stencil brush would work with Mylar but the plastic divider is quite thin and allows the paint to seep outside of the lines. I used white paint but hey it’s autumn so feel free to use orange and golden paint too!

Then I filled in the end of the stems (you can even reconnect them to the other leaves if you like) and fixed up the letters with a paintbrush. And then I put it on display with some of my own harvest blessings!

Let us know if you have any questions or comments about making a customized stencil. And please share any pictures of art that you make using Rapid Resizer if you like!

Happy Autumn everyone!

~Melissa