Seasons Change Home Wreath Sign | DIY

Merry Christmas season, everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying your holiday season with friends and family and staying warm, because winter has arrived here in Michigan! If you’re looking for a DIY decor project to fill your walls or for a handmade gift for someone you love this winter, look no further! This Seasons Change Home Wreath sign is customize-able, the wreath is interchangeable, and it’s SO pretty (tooting my own horn here)!

I’ve been on the hunt for a while for the perfect sign or wall art to hang over the coat hooks in my entry because… well.. it was feeling kind of boring. The ceilings are high in the entryway and I wanted to use a little more of that vertical space. Upon searching one home decor store after another, I found an absolutely adorable HOME sign with a cute boxwood wreath taking the place of the O. I had found what I wanted! Well… sort of. Upon further inspection and a check of the price tag, I discovered two things. #1.) It was like $80. Call me cheap, but there was no way I was paying $80 for a sign to hang in my entry. In fact, my budget was more like $20-$30. And,  #2.) It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. Christmas is quickly approaching, and I kind of wanted a wreath that I could change out from season to season. I also wanted a different wood finish to better match my entryway. I have enough different finishes going on already without introducing yet another wood finish.

What to do, what to do? Continue searching more stores for the exact sign I was envisioning? No, not with kids in tow. DIY it? Of course! I say that semi-sarcastically, because I sometimes have these big ideas and then have no idea where to start. Or I have to rope Teddy in and he ends up doing more of the work than me. But not this time! I had a leftover pine board from the bookcases Teddy built in the living room last year and everything I needed at home with the exception of a wreath. I had a plan!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1″ x 12″ x 36″ Wood Board (I used a leftover one we had bought from Menard’s. You can find the one I used here for only $7.99.)
• 8″ or 9″ Wreath(s)
• 1 Cup White Paint
• 1 Cup Water
• Wide Paint Brush
• Printed Mirrored (backwards) Letters H, M, & E to size (I printed them the full size of a 8.5″x11″ paper)
• Black Paint Marker
• Small Paint Brush
• Black Craft/Acrylic Paint
• 1 Screw-In Cup Hook
• 1 Picture Hanging Kit such as this one

The first thing I did before starting was wipe the board down with a barely damp cloth to remove any dirt or sawdust. It only took a couple minutes to dry and while it did, I made my white wash mixture with 1 cup of white paint (just regular wall paint will work) and 1 cup of water. I wanted the sign to look noticeably white with wood grain showing through and this 1:1 ratio worked well for that.

Once the sign was all clean and dry, I painted on the white wash mixture to the face and sides of the board with a wide paint brush. I moved fairly quickly and promptly wiped the wet paint off with dry paper towel to give it the white wash effect. You’ll want to move quickly so that the paint doesn’t dry before you get to wipe it off. You could also use a dry cloth instead of paper towel for the wiping process. A cloth may be preferred versus a paper towel if your wood surface is rough at all.

I did a second coat in order to make the white a little darker, wiping the second coat with a dry paper towel as well. After you get the white wash look just how you want it, let the board dry. I let it dry overnight, but it would probably be ready within a few hours.

Once I had my board painted and fully dried, I was able to start with the letters. Because I knew my board was 12″ high, I printed the letters the full size of the 8.5″ x 11″ printer paper so that I knew it would fill the sign. You could print them smaller if you’d like. I just used a regular printer for this and regular printer paper. You can choose whatever font you’d like, but an important thing to remember before printing is to mirror the letters! You want the letters flipped horizontally so that they read backwards because you’re basically going to be tattooing them onto the board face down.

Once you have them all printed, lay them across the board with your wreath to make sure they fit well (my E is upside down in the photo above, but is printed backwards as I described).

If they all fit well, you can move on to the next step which is “tattooing” the letters onto the wood. I call it “tattooing” because the process reminds me of how you apply the temporary tattoos for kids. I started by measuring and drawing a guideline with pencil across the bottom to line up the bottoms of my letters. I spaced them out evenly, using my wreath to make sure I had plenty of room for it between the H & the M, and with the bottoms of the letters sitting on my penciled guideline, I taped the papers face down onto the board. Keep the tape on the edges and be sure you don’t cover any of the letter areas.

Once the papers are all taped in place, use a paint brush (I washed out the wide paint brush I used to paint the board and re-used for this process) and dampen it in a cup of water, wiping away the excess water on the edge. Paint the water over the taped on paper without soaking the paper. If you’ve brushed the excess water off, this shouldn’t be a problem. You want to wet the paper just enough that you can start to see the letters through it but not so much that it will rip easily.

Immediately after dampening the paper, use a hard object like the handle of your paintbrush (if it’s wide enough) or the end of a permanent marker and run it across the paper over top of the letters. You’ll want to press down slightly when running the hard object across to transfer the ink from the paper to the wood, but not too hard as you don’t want to rip the paper. Ripping the paper could result in starting fresh and it would be a little difficult to realign your letter without messing it up.

Repeat the process for all of your letters.

Now you’ll carefully remove each paper to reveal your transferred letters and they’ll look something like the photos below.

Next, you’ll outline each letter using a black (or any color you choose) painter marker. You could fill in the whole letter with the painter marker, but I chose to fill the letters in with black acrylic paint and a small paint brush so that I didn’t use up all of my painter marker. You could also paint the whole letter with paint and a paintbrush if you have a steady hand, but I already had the painter markers and I didn’t want to risk it.

The photo below shows the letters all painted in.

Once the paint dried, it was time to add my picture hanging kit on the back and screw in the cup hook for the wreath. I screwed in the cup hook evenly between the H and the M and slightly below the line of the top letters to leave room for the top of the wreath.

To get a better idea, with the sign laying flat, place the wreath where you want it to hang and use a pencil to make a dot just below the center of the top of the wreath. Remove the wreath and screw the cup hook in on the dot. Attach your hanging kit evenly to the back of the sign (be sure it is rated to hold the weight of your sign), and your sign is ready to hang on the wall!

All that’s left to do is add your wreath! As you can see, I started with a very thin “wreath” that I had made out of some berry stems I had, but didn’t like how it looked next to the large bold letters. Instead, I bought a small plain Christmas wreath at Meijer (for under $5) and dressed it up with pieces of those same berry stems, hot glue, and a bow.

Since we’re approaching Christmas, the Christmas wreath is what’s currently hanging on the sign, but as you’ll see below, I purchased another small wreath from Marshall’s, for $9.99, that will hang during the warmer spring and summer months. You could probably find or even make wreaths for cheaper and you could use any style of wreath you’d like. I’ll probably come up with a fun fall wreath to hang next fall; possibly with fall leaves or something along those lines.

I loved making this sign customized to my space and interchangeable between the changing seasons and I love how it looks and fits perfectly in my space even more; welcoming friends and family to our home!

Little Keira likes it, too! Or she’s trying to escape outside to play in the snow… 🙂

This sign could be could be customized however you’d like. If you’d prefer to stain the wood a different color or leave it raw, that could absolutely be done. I would recommend sealing it when you’re done if you decide to leave the wood raw. You may want to seal it even if you paint it, but I did not do this. You could also make it any size keeping in mind two things: #1.) You’ll have to find or make a wreath to fit the size you’re working with and #2.) You’ll want to be sure to print your letters the right size (example: My board is 12″ high and I printed my letters to fill that height by filling a full 8.5″ x 11″ paper per letter). You could also make this sign vertically with a skinnier board, which would also be super cute!

All in all, the sign cost me about $15, which was basically the cost of the wreaths, because I had a lot of the supplies at home already. Not too bad, considering this sign can change with the seasons or my decorating whims. 😉 If you use whatever wood board you have at home and size your wreath and letters to fit, you can definitely save money on this project. If you have to buy all the supplies, the total cost comes in around or just under $30.

I hope you enjoyed my first DIY home decor post! I’d love to see how your signs turned out! Tag me in your HOME wreath sign photos on Instagram @charming.north or share with me on facebook! Merry Christmas and happy DIYing! <3