Halloween Sign Tutorial

Happy Halloween! Oh! What's that? It's only September? Well well well. Let's break it down. There are 52 days until Halloween, and yes. I am already counting. I LOVE Halloween. You have to have some serious love for this holiday to create a countdown for the neighborhood children, right? I'm excited about Halloween this year because I'm in a new house! I'm also slightly nervous. You see, back at our old house in Oceanside, our little community was like something out of a movie on Halloween. There were kids everywhere. Mobs of them, and I secretly think that kids would get dropped off in our neighborhood because the knew the lady that lived at 714 Morse was hooking kids up with candy. Last year my husband acquired some full sized candy bars from the baby recruits who go through boot camp, and I handed out full sized candy bars (we had a huge moving box full of them) and went through $100 in candy, and we had to turn our light out because we ran out! See, INTENSE!

I'm eager to see how a North Carolina Halloween compares to a California one...

My sister sent me a picture of this exact sign last month, along with the blog. See, this isn't just something you can fetch from a Hobby Lobby, I mean a Home Goods, I mean from someone on the side of the road. You've got to see this tutorial first. ;) And here is the blog of the girl who made that sign, she's adorable!

 I did things a little different than her, and I actually have the words for the stencil that you can download if you want them.

What you need:
-Wood (1x4 in this tutorial) however big you want it, you can click on the tutorial link above for more specific wood instructions
-Black, Orange, Yellow, and White Acrylic Paint
-Teeny Paint brushes
-Washi tape (to hold stencils on the wood)
-Wood Glue
-2 Chalkboards
-Printer

Step One:
The first thing I did was take advantage of the week of leave my husband had. I texted him a picture of the sign from work along with one word, "Puhlease?" and when I pulled up in front of our house 4 hours later, I found him waiting for me with our dog upfront and this bad boy. God bless him!

He used 1x4s and cut them at varying lengths and nailed them to the two long poles you see at the bottom. It was very sort of haphazardly done (I didn't share the girls tutorial with him before this, whoops!) This one was rather large, but hey, we have a big lawn. I want peeps to see this from the street.

Step Two:
Print the stencils, cut and tape to the board.

Here are the templates - it takes you to a Scribd website - totally fine!
It's all about the candy stencil
Candy Stencil
Days Countdown Stencil

Step Three:
See how it looks. If you're going to spend an insane amount of time on a project, make sure it looks fabulous beforehand! I put hay under mine to hide the legs of the sign.

Step Four:
Cut out the words. This is how I got that beautiful writing! I only freehand with chalk - paint, not so much. I cut out everything and then trace it with pencil and paint the lines with teeny brushes.

Don't forget to do those candy corns first!

Step Five:
Use wood glue to attach the chalkboards

Step Six:
Put one of your best friends in front of it to model.

Step Seven:
Question the four hours you spent making the sign, and realize that you're bad ass in that headband, like Brett Michaels.

Step Eight:
Hang out with your wang out. DISPLAY!!!!!

Please let me know if you have any questions! On a difficulty level, I'd say this is a 3. If you can cut and trace, and don't have shaky hands, it's SUPER easy!

: )