DIY Wood Signs Are So Easy to Make!!

Make your own DIY wood signs by following this step by step tutorial with free SVG files for wood signs.

After remodeling my hallway a few months ago, I moved on to my laundry room.  In the fifteen years that we have lived in our home, I have never done anything to our laundry room.

I didn’t want to spend much money since it’s just a laundry room but I wanted it to be a place where I liked going in to (I know that’s a hard task, right??).  Well, I am finally done with the remodel, so make sure to check out the full post on my farmhouse laundry room makeover for all the details.

One of the last things on the list was a little decor for the small laundry room. And if you have been following me for a while you know I love to make things instead of spending money and of course, that meant I needed to make one of my DIY wood signs to add some character to the laundry room. 

So, today I have a step by step DIY wood signs tutorial with a lot of pictures and also a free SVG laundry cut file!

You can find the free laundry sign SVG file and more Cricut sign ideas at the bottom of the post. DIY signs are the perfect project to use up scrap wood!

Materials for Cricut Laundry Signs

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• A piece of wood or MDF cut to the size you want the sign
• Paint – I used a combination of regular wall paint and chalk paint – just what I had on hand
• contact paper or oracal 631 for stencil
• transfer tape
• painter’s tape
• Cricut or another cutting machine (Cricuts are amazing!  You can check out my Ultimate Cricut Ideas guide here!)

How to Make Your Own DIY Wood Sign

For this Cricut sign, we are going to be using the PVPP method which stands for the order we are putting things on the wood board. P-Paint V-Vinyl P-Paint P-Paint

So first we paint.

Find a piece of wood or MDF that is the size you want your sign to be and make sure it’s sanded and smooth.  I had a spare piece of MDF that I had painted on before so I just painted over it.   

Start by painting the entire board the color you want the wording to be.  I just used some Alabaster wall paint that I had used to paint my new DIY shaker cabinets.

I always put a paintbrush I’m going to use again in a plastic bag so it doesn’t dry out.

Prepare your DIY stencil 

Second we apply the Vinyl.

Upload the SVG file (find below) into Cricut Design Space and size it to a little smaller than your board.  The Cricut won’t cut anything longer than 23.5 inches so I always make sure my boards are shorter than that to make it easy.

Also, if you are new to CDS, make sure to check out my series of Cricut Design Space 101 tutorials to get started.

For this project, I used contact paper as a stencil since that’s what I had on hand.  It doesn’t stick as well so there tends to be a bit more paint bleeds but it’s not hard to touch up.  Normally I would use vinyl such as Oracal 631 or Cricut removable vinyl.

I cut the contact paper on the vinyl setting.

Then pull off the surrounding contact paper and weed out the small pieces inside the letters with a weeding tool.

Then apply transfer tape or clear contact paper to cover the entire design.  (Remove the backing if you are using contact paper)

I usually use transfer tape on my DIY wood signs but since I was using contact paper, I opted to use clear contact paper since it isn’t as tacky as the transfer tape.  When it’s less tacky, the contact paper peels off better. 

However, if I were using vinyl, I would have used transfer tape:) 

Scrape down the transfer tape with a scraper.

Then align the whole thing on your board and add a strip of painter’s tape down the middle to hold it in place.

Pull the transfer tape up on one side and cut off the paper backing behind it right next to the tape.

Then slowly lay down the transfer tape smoothing it out from the middle to the sides.  Then scrape it on the board.

Then you are going to remove the blue tape.  The stencil will stay in place since the other side is already stuck to the board. 

Fold over the transfer tape and pull off the backing and again lay it down slowly while smoothing it out.

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I’d love it if you come craft with me on Instagram!

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Scrape it down really well!  You might need to go over it several times trying to get all the corners to stick. 

Start pulling off the transfer tape.  Sometimes the contact paper doesn’t want to stick as well as vinyl will, so you might need to scrape it down more or hold it down with your finger.

Scrape it down one more time but make sure not to scrape the edges up!

Time to Start Painting Your DIY Sign

Thirdly it’s time to Paint again.

Now paint a coat of the same color over the lettering!  This helps to prevent bleeding from the top color.

And the last step is to Paint the topcoat.

Let that coat dry and then paint on your topcoat color.  I used Waverly Elephant chalk paint color from Wal-Mart.  I like chalk paint because it is easy to sand off to get a rustic look. 

I don’t paint my whole board either.  I leave a little white showing on the edges.

If you want to sand your edges, do that once your paint is dry.  You can also add a varnish or coat of poly here to seal it.  I didn’t since it’s just going in my laundry room and won’t get touched or knocked.

Once the top coat is dry (usually about an hour) you will start pulling off your stencils.  I use a weeding tool but you could also use a utility knife.  Try not to gauge holes in the board or scratch it too much!

I had a few bleed-throughs which I usually get when using contact paper.  Just take a small paint brush and go back through and touch them up.

That’s it!  Not as hard you thought, right? 

Making your own DIY wood signs saves so much money and can be personalized to whatever you want it to say!

Hammer a sawtooth hanger or whatever you like to use and hang it up!

To check out how I painted the cabinets click here!  Or to see how easy it is to install plank flooring click here.

I love what it adds to my laundry room! 

Laundry Room SVG FREE File

As a reminder, all of my FREE SVG files are for personal use only. Please click here to purchase a commercial use license if you want to use the files to sell items.

Sometimes the file will look blurry when you first open it, but once you download it, the SVG will open up clearly. If you need additional help, make sure to check out my video on how to download and upload files to CDS at the bottom of that post.

Or check out my Cricut Design Space 101 series for even more tutorials.

Laundry SVG cut file – Download my PNG file for free by clicking here  Or SVG Here. 

More Cricut Wood Sign Ideas

I have made a ton of wood signs with my Cricut for my home including my outdoor patio rules sign. So to give you some more Cricut sign ideas, here are some of my favorites I have made over the years (I used the same PVPP method to make all of them!)

If you want to check out other DIY wood signs I’ve made with my Cricut click here.

If you’d like to save this tutorial on making laundry wood signs with a Cricut for later, you can Pin it now if you’d like!

Let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks for stopping by. 

Have a great day!

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