Hats and Shoes - A Vintage Sign Tutorial

If you are a devoted fan of Karen over at The Graphics Fairy, you saw the wonderful black and white images she featured last week.  I loved the images of the old shoes and the London buildings, but my absolute favorites were the men in the party hat ads.  I was hysterical with laughter as I tucked them away in my file. 

 I thought about those shelves I bought from Mr. Durland's warehouse on my Low Country crawl.  I came up with the obvious - signs!  I lugged the shelves to the back patio, sanded them, and gave them a coat of watered down Anita's Craft Acrylic (baby blue).

I liked the white-washed finish on them and wanted it to come through.  After sanding, I squirted some paint on , stuck a foam brush in water, and spread it out. I did both sides on both pieces because if some paint rubbed off that was okay - more distressing!  The ends of these are capped with galvanized steel   suitably beat up.

While these were drying. I printed out on plain white paper the three men in hats, the four shoe designs, and my favorite - the bee in a laurel wreath.  After playing around with the designs I decided to save the high-top shoes for later.

 Here are the three men - full size on white paper. I did not take a picture of the shoes or the bee, but you will see them later.  You can tell already I am partial to these gents in hats!

 I planned to directly Mod Podge the images to the boards and not do a transfer.  I do not like straight lines when I do this.  A trick I use is to take a paint brush and water to draw around the image.  You might have to go around more than once to saturate the paper - do not encroach on your image.  Then gently pull the excess paper from your image.  Let the paper completely dry before decoupaging.




I positioned the images on the board and applied a light coat of Mod Podge to the back only - carefully placing them down.  TIP:  I take a piece of waxed paper and a paper towel and gently burnish over the image smoothing out any bubbles.  The waxed paper will not stick and your image will be even.  After about an hour I covered the entire board with a coat of Mod Podge (matte).  You can repeat the waxed paper treatment if any bubbles appear.

I forgot something important.  I decided the gents needed some color so I pulled out my colored pencils (NOT  water color - just plain colored lead) I lightly shaded in eye color, hair, and hats before the second coat of Mod Podge.



After allowing proper drying time (it depends - just check it with your finger to see if it is dry.  My drying time was fast because of the sun and heat.)  I used Archival black ink to print the titles on each piece. I chose "Men With Party Hats" and "If The Shoe Fits".  I do not know which stamp company makes these letters (yard sale find).  Allow time for the ink to dry.   Then apply two coats of a satin varnish to the front, back and sides.

And now THE BIG REVEAL!  No, wait a second. I left out putting eye hooks and a wire to hang the signs.  Then I decided since it was Men With Party Hats, the sign needed hooks for hanging hats so added those.  I left the hooks off the shoe sign - does anyone hang up their shoes?!?

AND NOW THE BIG REVEAL:

Gosh, I really need to paint that fence.  Hope you enjoyed the signs!  While I was waiting for all the drying, I started work on several other projects.  So come back again!