Where did this summer go? We have been super busy lately and I can’t believe it is already September!! With the changing of the seasons, I am knee deep in fall decor around the house. I have been getting out all our old decor, re-purposing some and buying a little new. 😉 I can’t wait to share some of our fall decor with you but first I need to get you a tutorial that I have been promising for a while. When I say a while, I actually mean almost a year!! Agh! We made this DIY interchangeable farmhouse sign for my fall mantel last year in October!

I love the fact that this farmhouse sign is interchangeable! So in the meantime, I have also used it for a couple other vignettes like my Disney inspired hot cocoa bar…

And in this farmhouse St. Patrick’s Day Vignette…

In addition, I made up some other designs so you can literally use this farmhouse sign all year round! Here are the different phrases available:

The links to each design will be a little further down in the post. Now onto the tutorial…

For this project you will need:

Supplies:

• 1×2″ pieces of wood
• 1/4″ plywood or MDF
• Round Magnets
• Wood Glue
• Cream colored acrylic paint
• Black acrylic paint
• Stipple paint brush

Tools:

• Cricut and accessory tools
• Clamps
• Finishing nailer and brads
• Drill
• 1 1/4″ forstner bit
• 3/4″ forstner bit (optional)
• Router with 1/2″ straight cutting bit
• Miter saw

We were able to use scrap pieces of wood for this project and we had all the other supplies on hand already so it cost us nothing to make! The overall size of the sign is 6″x12″. So you will need to cut your 1×2’s to length of 12″ for the long edge and 4 9/16″ for the short sides. Then glue, nail and clamp together to make a simple frame.

Cut a 5 1/8″ x 11 1/8″ piece from the 1/4″ plywood or MDF for the back of the frame.

We made two holes in the frame backing so we would be able to change out the sign inserts. Using a 1 1/4″ forstner bit attached to your drill, cut 2 holes about 2.5″ in from each side. Lay a scrap piece of wood underneath the plywood so you don’t cut into your table and to make a clean cut all the way through the plywood.

Next, cut some inserts for the signs out of the 1/4″ plywood or MDF to fit inside the frame. We used MDF for this as we already had it on hand. The size of the inserts are 4.5″ x 10.5″. Cut as many as you want to make into different signs.

Using your router with a 1/2″ bit, make a rabbet around the inside of the back of the frame. This is where the backing piece will fit into.

Round off the corners of the frame backing as needed to fit it into the frame.

Glue and nail the frame backing to the frame.

Paint one side of the inserts with cream colored acrylic paint and let dry. While the inserts are drying, you can stain the frame if desired. We used an aging stain on ours. It is the same stain we used on our DIY tobacco basket. You can find the ‘recipe’ in that post. After the stain on the frame was dry, I lightly sanded the edges to distress it a little.

To keep the sign inserts from falling out we attached round button magnets to the back of the inserts and to the inside of the frame. We initially tried one magnet in the center but that was not strong enough to hold the insert in (so ignore the magnet in the center in the photos below). 😉 For the other two magnets, we decided to recess the magnets slightly, not completely, thinking this would help the magnets hold to each other (if they were sticking up more). Super glue the magnets into the holes.

You really don’t have to recess the magnets, you could just glue them straight onto the backing. This would just make the sign insert stick out a little further inside of the frame. Hopefully that makes sense. 🙂 Stick another set of magnets onto the magnets in the frame backing. Add super glue to these magnets.

Press one of your sign inserts straight down firmly onto the magnets with the super glue on them.

Now the magnets will be attached to the back of the sign insert. Mark an arrow to show which side is up on the frame backing and the inserts. If the insert is flipped around the wrong way the magnets will not work.

Repeat this process with the remaining inserts. Now you can switch them out. See how you can use the holes in the backing to push the insert out?

Now that the sign is made, the next part is to make paint the words onto the inserts. We used our Cricut to achieve this, you could also use stencils or if you have really great handwriting, paint your own designs! 🙂 There are many tutorials available on YouTube on how to use a Cricut so I won’t go into details on that.

Here are the png files for all of the designs we have available. You may have to resize them in the program that you use to make sure they are the correct size for the inserts.

hello autumn

I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas

Merry Christmas

farmhouse

do small things with great love

hot chocolate is like a hug from the inside

i love us

lucky

& to all a good night

This farmhouse sign is the perfect size and so versatile to fit into any vignette or mantel decor. I know I will be using mine for years to come!