Welcome Sign

This project sort of moved past the area of woodworking more into the area of crafts.  I hope I don't lose any man-points by doing this!  But I wanted to try a couple of different things and this helped me to do it.  First of all I got more practice on the scroll saw cutting out the sign.  The outside edge wasn't too bad and cutting out the letters on the inside actually came out better than I expected.  I have been cutting some small items on 1/4 inch birch.  I found that this 3/4 inch pine was much easier to cut.  I think the added thickness of the wood gives better control and you don't seem to stray out of the lines as quickly.

After cutting out the sign I just painted it white with some while acrylic craft paint.  Then from the back side I tried to paint the inside edges of the letters with black.  I got most of the depth from the back and then moved to the front to try and finish it.  I was using a crappy brush that had bristles springing out all over the place so I ended up getting a lot of black on the front of the sign.  After it dried I sanded down the black spots and went over those areas again with white.  I think it turned out OK.

I decided to make the sign seasonal and since St. Patrick's Day is coming up, I googled shamrocks and found lots of images.  I printed out copies in two different sizes and cut them out. They are both cut from Birch plywood.  The two smaller ones I actually cut at the same time from two pieces of birch stacked on top.  I just used clear packing tape the secure them together.  It was interesting that in cutting a stacked object like that, it really pointed out that my table and blade are not at a perfect 90 degree angle.  I thought I was pretty close but this showed how it wasn't.  I did some adjustments to the table after I cut this and it is pretty good now.

I had bought white, black, and green paint at Hobby Lobby.  The dark green one is the green paint I bought.  I then mixed the green with a little white and painted the other.  I also painted the large shamrock the dark green.  I then rummaged through my wife's scrapbook paper and found a perfect piece of shamrock paper.  I used the same pattern to cut out the paper and glued it to the shamrock.  I used Mod Podge to glue it down.  I then used a matte spray sealer to coat the whole thing a couple of times.  I tried to spray from several different sides so I could be sure and get the sides and inside the letters.

Finally I just used some small velco circles to stick the shamrocks on the board and stuck a piece of craft wire in it so I could hang it on the door.  I am in the process of making some Easter eggs that are about the same size as the shamrocks and once St. Patrick's Day is over I will take off the shamrocks and stick on the Easter Eggs.  Attaching them with velco makes this quick.  Although I am not sure what comes after Easter Eggs so when Easter is over I don't know what I will put on there!