Scavenger Chic

Vintage Style Oyster Sign diy

• By Joan
• October 19, 2015
• 9 Comments

Have you ever been given a sign by the universe that you should follow a certain course of action?  Well my sign from the universe was really a sign.  An oyster sign.

I spotted my first and second sign in a restaurant where my brothers and sisters had taken me for lunch for my birthday.  Both of the signs were oyster signs on opposite sides of the restaurant.  It made sense for the restaurant, they served fresh oysters.

 I had to take a picture.  Sorry about the quality of the shot, the light was dim in the corner where the oyster sign sat and I was trying to eat my lunch.

In the same restaurant, in a better lit corner, resided this other oyster sign. Paint is not quite as chippy but I love, love , the shadowing of the letters.

A few weeks later, I was just leaving another restaurant when I spotted this Oyster sign on the side of a wall.  Had to wait for a waiter to move with his trays of food before snapping this photo.

So, I have these three oyster pictures in my camera when my sister tells me she sold my  Delicious bbq sign and she wants me to do another sign with another yoke (single tree) that she had given me. It’s gotta be Oysters, after all, I saw the sign…three of them.

I already had wood that was nailed together, just one more project from my raid on the theatre props room.  If you didn’t have the pleasure of raiding a theatre props room, pallet wood nailed together is perfect for this project. The wood doesn’t even have to be aged, we’ll be doing that ourselves.

The sign was started by splashing a bit of white paint around the side of the sign, followed by a nice taupe/ gray color which just happens to be the exact color of my foyer. I know this to be true because it was in the can labeled foyer paint. The gray paint was painted on a little messy leaving some of the edges bare wood and allowing a little of the white to show through.

Back to the computer to design the sign.  This sign was once again created in Publisher where I was able to set my page size to 32×32, the size of my wood sign.

Playing with Publishers word art, fonts and word art shapes I was finally happy with my overall design.  The “word art shapes” allows Oysters to have that nice curvy look.

A 32×32″ sign prints out on 12 sheets of paper. The sign was printed and taped back together.

I keep saying I’m going to get genuine carbon paper to transfer my designs. Until I happen to remember, it’s scribbled pencil on the back of the sign where the lettering is.

Tape the sign in place and trace over the outline of the lettering.

You’re left with a nice pencil outline of your lettering just waiting for paint.

Oysters was first painted black…

followed by an outline of white then finished with a shadow of a bronze color.

An outline was drawn with a yardstick and a 1/4 inch paint brush was used to just follow the outline around the perimeter of the sign.

“Fresh” was transferred in the same manner as the Oysters part of the sign and painted.

Just traced around the outline of the oyster and filled in with the same color paints that I used for the rest of the sign.

The sign was finished off by sanding then a coat of clear wax mixed with a little dark wax on the edges.

The yoke was attached to the sign the same way as the bbq sign, with the addition of a couple of shower hooks.

Sometimes when you see a sign you know it’s your destiny.  Literally.

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