Need a place for lost socks...{Tutorial}

I did this post as a guest post for Hannah over at Young and Crafty a while back, but I wanted to share it with you guys here too! Enjoy this fun tutorial!

So, who of you out there like to do laundry? If you said 'I', then I'm not sure we can be friends... Just kidding. But seriously, I don't really enjoy doing laundry. It's not my most hated of the chores, but it's not at the top of my list. And it seriously disturbs me when I know that I put nothing but pairs of socks into the washer/dryer, yet the dryer does not return all of the pairs back to me. What does it do with them? I'm not totally crazy, so I know that it's not just hoarding these socks away somewhere... So the only logical conclusion that I could come to, was this: Dryer lint must be the ashes of the socks that the dryer has eaten. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  {Anyways}

I have recently moved into a house, and the laundry room decorations are a work in progress since I lived in an apartment before and didn't have a laundry room. And of course, some of the decor in the laundry room also must be functional. Well, when I came across this Lost Socks Sign from Somewhat Simple on Pinterest (where else?), I was in loooove. I h-a-d to have one. The only problem was, my cricut machine wasn't working so I didn't have any way to print and cut Vinyl lettering. What's a girl to do? Well, I'll tell you. HAND STENCIL AND PAINT. Does that frighten you? Well, it shouldn't. I came across this tutorial from My Pink Life, and I was like, Haaaaallelujah! Jackpot! Now don't get me wrong, it's not easy, and is more difficult with the bigger variety/difficulty of fonts you choose, and also with the amount of lettering you have to do, but for a small project like this, it's a gem.

Here is what you will need:
Wood plaque of some sort
Ribbon
Staple Gun and Staples
e6000 adhesive
Large clothes pins
Acryllic paint colors of choice
Carbon paper
Paint pen
Regular pen
Artistic eraser
Sand paper

Ok, first take your sand paper and go over your whole sign. This may not be necessary depending on your plaque. I got this unfinished wood plaque at Hobby Lobby a while ago. Then you can give it a nice coat of paint, whatever color you choose. I used antique white. Once it dries you will most likely need to give it another coat. I did three coats on mine to get really even coverage.

And it helps if you have a really cute little helper giving you a hand :). While that is drying, go print off the font that you want to use for the words. What you will need to do, is open a word document. Then go to the fonts tab, or the drop down arrow (it's different depending on what version you have), and click text effects. Then click on text fill, and choose no fill, and then click on text outline, and choose solid line. It will be best to print in landscape. The fonts I used are Ck Cursive Regular and Pea Noodles Girlfriends. Two of my fave fonts!

Now you need to trace the font onto the plaque. First cut your paper so the two words can be side by side and then tape them together, and then tape one end down onto the plaque so that it stays straight and won't move. Now slip the carbon paper under your printer paper, and begin tracing over it with the regular pen.

Try not to touch the paper where you don't need to because the carbon will rub off onto the plaque.

Once you get it traced, it should look like this. And you see that little eraser? You can use that to erase any marks where the carbon rubbed off onto the sign. I got it at Hobby Lobby, in the painting section. It erases charcoal, graphite, and more. Now you're ready to fill in your letters. I used a paint pen for this, since the font was really skinny, and I was using black. Paint pens are easier to maneuver, but generally come in only primary colors. Although I have also seen some neon ones. You can also use a paint brush and paint if you have had some practice doing this sort of thing before.

That's the pen that I used, and it worked great. Just follow the directions to get the paint flowing, and be careful to not press too hard, or a lot of paint will come out all at once. I already had some black clothes pins lying around, so I didn't have to paint mine. But I did add the polka dots. I just squeezed a little antique white paint onto a plate, and used the end of a sharpie marker to make my little dots. The end of a pencil eraser would work great too, but I couldn't find one. The fun thing about this part, is that the options are litterally endless. You could paint all sorts of different patterns, or glue cute scrap book paper on there! After the polka dots are dry, glue the clothes pins onto the board where you want them, using the e6000 adhesive.

Now, is everything dry? Good. Now you can sand until your little heart's content. I usually like a pretty heavily distressed look, so that's what I did. I sanded on the clothes pins, on the edges of the sign, and over the lettering.

As you can see, it will "smear" the paint a tad. That's why you need to make sure that the paint is good and dry before you take the sand paper to it. Now the last thing for you to do, is to staple on your ribbon so it can hang on the wall!

I looooove it! And it's the first thing that I've hung up in the Laundry Room. It already makes me feel better about having to do laundry.

Sooo, what do ya think? Are you scurying around to gather the things you need to make this?

Sorry this post is so long. I didn't quit realize it would take so much to explain this tutorial. But I like to be thorough... So there you go! If you make one, send me pics or leave them in the comments below so I can see what you did!

Oooor, if you don't feel like going through all of this trouble to make your own, you can always visit my Etsy shop and order one! It would make a super cute Christmas gift... Just sayin.

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