An Old Canvas
These are fairly common in Thrift Stores and Op Shops around the world. There are canvases with real paintings on them, and canvases with printed images on them. The best ones for re-cycling or upcycling are going to be the canvases with printed images.
- Simply paint over the old printed image with your choice of background colour that you’d like to start your fresh sign with.
- Stencil using Essential Stencil; or create a sign using one of the Transfer graphics methods I show in my video tutorials.
Another way to use an old canvas is to find an image that could also double as a background for some beautiful lettering or stenciling. Essential Stencil “Stencil of the Month Club” member, Dana Wood from Woodie’s Goodies, has done just that using this four part panelled canvas she found at her local thrift store.
She simply stenciled over the top of the canvas in the space created by the sky, using the Micah 6:8 stencil set from Essential Stencil, and voila – a “brand new” sign for her home!
Pieced Together Pallet Wood or Bed Slats
I have pulled apart – or rather, cut apart – several pallet racks which have provided wood for lots of fun DIY projects, including sign making. I’ve also used old bed slats that were a similar width or wider, than the pallet type wood.
They can be used as small signs like this Valentine’s Day Sign:
Or they can be joined together to make larger sign boards in a couple of ways. The method that I find easiest, is by joining three boards together at the back with a two smaller pieces of pallet wood or scrap wood, screwing them in place in their four corners to make them stable & secure.
The other way of joining them could be with biscuit joins and wood glue, clamping them together until dried. To do this, you would need a biscuit joiner machine which can make things a little more complicated unless you know someone who has one and can do this for you.