Wooden Christmas Sign - We Rejoice in Christ

I have an addiction to wooden signs. To me they are a brilliant way to decorate because they are simple to make, they are cheap to make, and you can express yourself through the words written on them. I didn't cut any wood for this project. This is wood I collected (with permission) from some building sites in my neighborhood. I simply went to my collection and worked with what I had. The wood I chose for this project was a 2x10 ( approximately 21 inches in length) for the main board and a 2x6 (approximately  19 inches in length) for the base.

This is how I made it:

1. Make stencils. Rejoice Stencil: I laid two pieces of 8 1/2 x 11" cardstock on my 2x10 to get an idea how big my font should be for the "rejoice". I knew the baby cricut I have would not cut as big as I needed so I did this stencil manually. I decided I would print the "Rej" on one piece of paper and "oice" on the other. The font I used was Brush Script Std and the font size was 710. Before I hit print I changed the font to "outline" to save on ink.  I cut out the letters and then taped the paper where I had to cut through the sides, to make it one whole piece. Remember to save the insides of the letters for your stencil.
REOE all had inside pieces that I needed to tape to my wood to stencil properly.

For the second set of stencils: I used my baby Cricut with the Winter Wonderland cartridge that I borrowed from my aunt. The fonts were all 3" cuts. I used the Font Shadow option. It is time consuming figuring out where all the fonts are with this cartridge. Here are the page numbers:
W - pg 43  e - pg. 44  i - pg. 49  n - pg. 67  C - pg. 64  h - pg. 57  r - pg. 45  i - pg. 49  s - pg. 53
t - pg. 46.

I cut the snowflake stencils out in three different sizes: 5 1/2 inch, 4 1/2 inch and 3 inch.
The snowflake is found on page 35. I used the layer option.

2. Prepare the sign. I got my husband to screw the base to the main board (I would have done it but he is touchy with me going into HIS domain - thank you sweetie). He used three screws.

3. Paint the wood. I painted the all the wood in Berry Red. Let dry.

4. Stencil. I used double sided tape to adhere the stencils. I used the Rejoice letters (not the stencil) I cut out and laid them in the middle to get an idea where to put the stencils. I adhered the "We" and "in Christ" stencils to fit around the rejoice lettering remembering to adhere the "inside" of the letter "e". After cutting the stencils to fit and adhering them to the wood with double sided tape, I dabbed on white paint with a sponge brush. Let dry. Take off stencils.
I put the rejoice stencil over top the rejoice letters and adhered the stencil in place, taking the letters out after and adhering on the insides of the letters. I dabbed on antique white paint with a sponge brush. Let dry. Take off stencils. Then I put on snowflakes where I saw fit. Some of them extended over the top or bottom. Let dry. Take off stencils.
I brushed a tiny bit of white paint here and there to make white streaks.

5. Lightly sand. With a power sander or by hand, lightly sand the front if you want a rustic look. Wipe off dust with a soft cloth.

6. Stain. I took a scrap piece of fabric and dipped it into light stain paint. I covered the whole board. Let dry.

7. Touch ups. I glued two flattened marbles to the centers of two snowflakes. I also felt the "Rejoice" needed to be outlined to stand out more. I did a light outlining with a brown permanent marker. This should have been done before the staining.