Love Sign Craft How-To

Read on to get the simple, step-by-step how-to, as well as the free printable stencil...

I love this "Love" sign for a lot of reasons: 1. It looks super complicated but is soooo easy that anyone can do it, 2. It doesn't require costly materials, and you only need a few supplies,and 3. It is so versatile! It's great for just having up in your home, for weddings, gifts, Valentine's decor, you name it. Who doesn't want a little more love around?

Below is everything you need to know to make this:

Supplies Needed:

1. Two reclaimed wood boards (or weather new wood), I used some old fence wood pieces. The size shown are 3.5"W x 20"L. Total width is thus 7" wide. You could also use other sizes and just alter the stencil letters' size.
2. Nails or screws and wood glue to put the two pieces together. I used two small wood scraps on the back. Put glue on the scrap and laid it across the two pieces, one on each end. Then nailed the scraps to the back of the sign. (Skip this step if you have only one piece of wood for your sign).
3. White or off white paint. Acrylic or latex work well.
4. Felt. In this example I have off-white felt. White, red, or pink felt look great too. You need about a 10"x21" felt piece to make approx. 22 felt rosettes/flowers (ex. has 22 flowers).
5. Scissors
6. Glue gun and sticks
7. Sandpaper (optional) if you want to sand after the paint is dried for a shabby distressed look

Directions

1. Print out below jpeg file on 7.5"x11" sheet of paper or cardstock. Instructions are also on the sheet for your convenience.

2. Cut out the letters to use as your "stencils". (The "L" is shown on the bottom right of the image above). When drawing the heart on your sign in exchange for where the "O" should be, use the half stencil guide to help you make a whole heart.

3, Place letters on the wooden sign and lightly trace each letter with a pencil (once you paint over the letters any pencil that is painted over is impossible to erase. Trace lightly so this won't be an issue)

4. Paint letters and let dry

5. Make rosettes. A helpful YouTube video on how to make these felt flowers is found here. Before following the steps on the video you will want to cut out your felt circles. To do this lay out your felt and using a small canning jar lid as your guide (or make a paper circles using the following dimensions as your guide), trace around 18 of the smaller circles and 3-4 of the bigger circles. Your circle lines can touch since you will want to cut your circles INSIDE of the lines. If the lines are showing around the perimeters of the cut out circles, the pen will show on your rosettes and you do NOT want that.

6. Using your hot glue gun, glue on the rosettes into the heart section of your sign. I like to use the 3-4 bigger flowers in the middle of the two upper sections and the bottom lower section of the heart, and then use the smaller flowers around the bigger flowers to make the perimeter of the heart as well as fill in the rest of the areas. You want the flowers touching, but not totally squished together. Also, the flowers should not be glued right next to the penciled guide. The edges of your flowers should help form the edge of the heart. Thus when all your flowers are glued on your sign, go back and erase the penciled guide of the heart that should still be showing.

7. Optional: using high grit sand paper (60-100 grit should work well) go back and sand the now dry painted letters for a distressed look.

And Voila, you're done! Congrats!

Making the rosettes takes the longest part of the craft, but once you see how simple they are to make, you can easily make them while watching your favorite TV show. Plus those cute little rosettes are great to add to hairbands, lamp shades, you name it.

If you have any questions please comment below and I will respond ASAP! Hope you have fun!