When one has a patio, one must make patio rules…

At least one should have some general guidelines for said patio.  I have been loving Pinterest for just over a year now and have been eyeing all the subway art that people are displaying.  People are creative, aren’t they!!!  So when it came to adding some personality to our newly finished patio, I knew that I wanted to try my hand at making a sign with lots of fun fonts.

Since I don’t have a steady surgeon’s artist’s hand, I knew I would be relying on my trusty Silhouette machine.  If you are at all inclined to do crafty stuff, I would recommend investing in a Silhouette — or at the very least make friends with someone that owns one!!!  These little suckers are AWESOME!!  I will have to admit to you that when I first started working with it I quickly realized that my computer skills were severly lacking.  I remember my mom telling me how when she gave my grandmother an IPad, it was so confusing for her that she ended up giving it back to mom.  (and let me tell you that woman is smarter than most people I know–she still runs a business out of her home at the age of 86)  I am sure that my grandkids will be working from their “IBooth” while eating an “ILunch” and talking into an “IPhone 87″ while being teleported in their “IFlyingCar”.  All the while I’ll be sitting in my rocking chair trying to figure out how to change the channel on the tv.  I’ll digress before I get depressed. 

So back to the patio rules… I had to come up with them.  I am allllllll about some rules now.  I am a mom after all, so this was fun for me.  Our list was:

• Listen to nature
• sip cold cokes or hot coffee
• soak up the sunshine
• read a book or two
• fire up the egg  ( if you don’t know about the big green egg, well you don’t know nuthin’. ha)
• visit with friends
• be nice or leave

Yes, the last one had to be said.  You know if we just let mean people go anywhere they want to go what type of world would this be?  Thankfully we haven’t had to point the screen door out to anyone…yet…

Now that the fun part was finished, it was time to bring out the power tools and safety gear.  I am not one of those women that can just saw, drill, nail, brace, and spray paint in one day.  No sir, I like to think things through for a month and a half and make sure that I’m doing it correctly.  (plus as soon as I get going on a project there seems to be an urgent chocolate milk need or batteries die and need to be replaced in the wii remote immediately — EVERY TIME!) Anyone else have that same weird phenomenon around their house?  It’s weird I tell ya.  So here are some steps along with pics of how I created my sign:

Steps to take for awesome signage:

1.  Assemble scraps of wood into the size sign that you want.  (we had leftover pallets from our brick delivery.  I just pulled them apart <blood, sweat, tears> sanded them down, placed them side by side, took 2 more boards and screwed them to the back to connect them all)
2.  Stain or paint the wood.  (this color will be your words on the sign)
3.  Cut out words of your choice and adhere them to the wood (I used sticky-back vinyl so that they would stay put when I painted over them)
4.  Paint over everything.  (I actually did two colors –cream & green–because I wanted it to look aged when I sanded away areas)
5.  Remove the letters before everything dries.

6.  Sand.  I actually added a little stain after I sanded to tone down the brightness of the cream and green.  Just wipe it on and off quickly so that it doesn’t go too dark.
7.  Hang and enjoy!!!