Our Hopeful Home: DIY This Is Us Sign Thrift Store Challenge

Welcome to a new monthly Thrift Store Challenge where my friends and I challenge each other to transform thrift store finds into something different, better and useful. This month I created a This Is Us sign for my family room, and I'm excited to be able to share it with you today.

The Rules:

Upcycle an item(s) from a thrift store, resale store, or garage sale into a new piece of decor.
There's no monthly theme.
There's no budget to stick to.

Meet the Hosts

So let's begin, shall we?

I picked up this sign at Goodwill for $2.99. It was a brand new home decor sign from Big Lots, original price $18.00. To me it was more of a seasonal piece -- that season being fall-- based on the sentiment and the colors. I liked the distressed look and the almost pallet wood look of the sign. But I didn't love it. But I figured for that price there's nothing a little paint and some pencil transfer graphics can't fix.

First I completely covered the original signage with two coats of Dixie Belle paint in Fluff. I absolutely love this paint (no one is paying me to say that) and was very happy once again with the results. The original words were completely covered, giving me a clean slate to work with.

I knew I wanted to create a sign to go above the gallery wall in our family room saying "This is us." I chose the font Buttercup Sample, then went into Word and chose the size of the letters according to the size of the sign. The sign was 31 inches long by 8 inches high. The font is sized at both 350 and 400, making most of the letters around 7, 6.5 and 5 inches high.

Then I cut out the words and traced around each letter on the back side of the paper with pencil. After that I turned the paper around, laid it on the wood where I wanted it, secured it with painter's tape and retraced the outline of the letters on the front side of the paper. Once I lifted up the paper I was left with an outline of the words for me to fill in. You can read a more detailed tutorial on how I perform this method in my post Stay Awhile Farmhouse Sign With Pencil Transfer Tutorial.

I filled in the letters with an Elmer's paint pen and voila.

It hasn't been hung yet but I know right where it's going to go. I just need to add one more photo to the gallery wall in our family room and then I'll add my "This Is Us" sign. I'll be sure to keep you posted with an update.

Right now I'm loving how it looks on my living room fireplace mantel. I also think it will look good on the farmhouse shelves in our dining room. Honestly, I can see this DIY This Is Us sign finding a number of great places in our home where it will look just perfect and add to the modern farmhouse feel I am looking for.

Well, that's it until next time, friends!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my

DIY This Is Us Sign

and that I've inspired you in some way.

Don't forget to Pin it!

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