Easy DIY Farmhouse Sign Tutorial

How to easily make a custom farmhouse sign using stencils.

Hi Friends! Today I’m sharing a great way to add a bit of rustic charm to your space by making your own farmhouse sign. There are a number of sign ideas out there and many ways to make one but if you’ve been here before, you know I love stencils. They make it super easy to do so many projects and once you have invested in a few stencils including letters, number and pictures, you have them in your project “tool kit” and can use them over and over.

Supplies needed for making your own farmhouse sign:

Wood in the size you want (any you choose)
Painters tape
Craft paint (or any paint)
Stencils in your choice of size and font
Stencil brush
Measuring tape
“D” ring or saw tooth hangers

You can totally personalize this and make your sign any size and color you’d like. I had a specific spot in mind for our sign, in between two windows, which were 83″ across including the trim. We made the sign 61 inches so that we could center it (roughly) above the window.

We wanted this DIY sign to have more of a rustic look so we chose to use rough saw pine. We are so fortunate to have a mill close to where we live and they have boards that have not been smoothed down by a planer so the surface is still rough (rough cut). I like the texture it adds to the final product, plus it’s cheaper. I also like the idea of helping out a local small business. 🙂

Getting the right size.

We started with one long board which was 10 inches wide and 10 feet long. For a bit more interest, I wanted this rustic farmhouse sign to be made up of three individual pieces of wood, instead of just one solid board, so we cut it down and made each plank four inches wide.

We laid the planks out and attached the pieces together on the back using pieces of scrap wood with one in the middle and one on each end. This DIY farmhouse sign was ready to paint.

I had seen a sign on Pinterest that I really liked that had a boarder around it’s edges and I wanted to do something similar. I added a faded boarder around the edges by using painters tape to make straight lines.

To get the faded look, I mixed some inexpensive black craft paint with a bit of brown and a tiny bit of water to thin it out. I used my stencil brush to apply it and by using just a a small of paint it helped to keep the paint on top of the wood instead of soaking into it.

Once the first line was done on the outside I added the second line and then removed the tape.

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For the word FARMHOUSE I chose 6 inch stencils in Roman Times font because I think they look a bit well, farmhouse-y.

Tip to evenly space your letters…

You can’t just line up the stencils so they lay next to each other because the letters themselves are different widths. The key to spacing the letters evenly across the wood (or as evenly as possible) is to measure from the widest point on the letter to the widest point on the next letter. Each letter should be approximately the same distance apart.

So there you have an easy rustic farmhouse sign that you can personalize to your family and your home. That’s the beauty of stencils, you can create anything you want and you can stencil on many surfaces like wood, metal (think metal milk can), glass, ceramic or plastic. So many possibilities!

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For more projects using stencils, you can see my Fresh Cut Flower sign here and my canister set here.