College Football Wooden Spirit Sign
It’s September!! Woo-whoo!! My favorite time of year, for all the obviously, glorious fall-y reasons…the main one being it’s college football season! We are big, huge, ridiculous, jump on the table, punch our neighbors (he’s a big guy), talk about it on date night kind of college football fans. I grew up in Auburn, AL…home of Auburn University, where I also went to college. My husband came for grad school and that is where we met, became friends, fell in love and got married. So, this sign is perfect for me to make and give as presents.
As much as we loved Virginia (we LOVED it), we always knew that if we had the opportunity to move back to a college town we would look at it. When my husband got offered a wonderful job in Stillwater, OK we decided to go for it. There is nothing that comes close to the excitement and hype of a college town on game day. I love to see the kids get their orange on and getting excited over tailgating and fanfare. It just feels like home to me. So, needless to say, I’m glad to be living in a college town for football season for the first time in 14 years! Is that right? Geez.
Anyway, I wanted to show off this sign I made for my bestie back in Auburn a few years ago. I didn’t take enough pics, this was from my pre-blogging days.
These boards are super easy to make and you can write whatever you like on them, this is just my little college gameday take on it. I took some 1x4s and cut 6 pieces at 24″ each. Then, I took a 1×2 piece of wood and cut two pieces at 20″ each. I clamped the 1x4s together and placed the small pieces on the back. Countersinking some holes and screwing them together at each 1×4. I also used a little wood glue just to be super secure. You can then hang a picture hanger wire between the small boards.
Then I flipped it back over and painted the whole thing.
For the lettering, I took the extra hard way because I didn’t know about carbon paper. If you have a super fancy stencil maker thing, this would be even easier. What I did was set up mine in Microsoft Word. I put my paper size to be the size of the board (or as close to the size of the board as I could get. Then I made the design the way I wanted it and printed it out on regular-sized sheets of paper. Make sure and use the “outline” feature on the letters to use WAY less ink. I sometimes had one or two letters per page, but that’s okay.
Next, (and this is what took forever), I cut each letter out and placed them on the board where I wanted. So, I didn’t take pictures at this point (I wasn’t blogging yet), but I basically just made my own little stencils. if you can find carbon paper, you can trace it very easily, and that is a huge time saver. Then I took a very light pencil and traced around the cutouts. After I had it all just so, I painted the letters using acrylic paints. I used Sharpie pens on some, but the Sharpie pens fade in the sun I’ve been told. If you are going to put them outside, stick to acrylics and maybe add a layer of Polycrylic or some other protective glaze.
And that’s it! Sorry for the lack of pictures, but if you have any questions at all, ask away.
Happy Fall, and as we say around here, Happy College Football Season!
Thanks for stopping by!
April
College Football DIY Wall Sign
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Football season is the best! My hubby and son are HUGE football fans, so we go all out with fun football foods for lunch each Sunday. Must be so fun living in a college town and feeling the excitement of game day!
It is SO fun, but like I said before – no Target ;). Thanks for stopping by Erin!
🙂
This is so cute! We are currently living abroad, and while I’m not a huge football fan, I do love the atmosphere of a good college football town. I’m a big fan of the tailgating and chatting… not so much the sports. ha! Anyway, this is adorable. When we are back in the states I may need to make one for my next tailgate!
I love the tailgating, I think doing so often growing up is what lead me to loving football :).
Cute! Before I got a silhouette I used Word and a razor blade and vinyl to create stencils.. whew.. it was a lot of work! 🙂
It is! Thanks for stopping by Alishia!
So cute! Great job! Although, I would definitely have to change the school name! 😉
Actually, I hear you are a Cowboy? Is that true?? We love Stillwater, just moved here in January and we are super excited to jump on the “Go Pokes” bandwagon!
Oh, yeah! Go Pokes, Orange Power! We are all about it! Both Jay and I both graduated from OSU! Hope you like Stillwater!
We do! Love it so far! We are friends with Karyl from Karyl’s Kulinary Krusade and we were talking about how much we loved Gastronom and she told us you went to school here. Getting ready for the first game, Go Pokes!
That’s awesome! Karyl even works with our brother-in-law! Ha! Such a small world! Looks like the game is going well so far! Go Pokes is right! 🙂
Small world for sure! Thanks for stopping by :
I live in Madison, so I can relate to your love of living in a college town and big football game days! We open Saturday against Alabama- it will be a challenge!
Well On Wisconsin!! Haha, hope you guys win BIG! Thanks for coming by!
Woohoo! We’ll have to make some sort of bet ..jk when our teams play. We are huge LSU fans; our teams play against each other September 19 at Tiger Stadium!
Well, go SEC! 🙂 Thanks for stopping by, Kim!
I agree, April, there is nothing like living in a college town during football season. I love it that if I’m not home watching the game, the play by play is broadcast in restaurants and in the grocery store! I love the feeling of expectation everywhere I go before the game starts, everyone in their orange and buying snacks for tailgating or watching at home! Your sign is very cute although it would look even better if it said Go Vols instead.
😉
Haha, I actually love the Vols! They are my second favorite after having a wonderful weekend of tailgaiting in Knoxville in college. Great town and atmosphere!
Awesome sign, April! I’m not a huge football fan, but the rest of my family is! We hit a lot of high school football games (we live in a small town, and it’s the social event of the week). :0) I’m so glad you discovered carbon paper! It has seriously saved my sanity. Have a great weekend!
Thanks Tiffany! I made this sign years ago, then discovered carbon paper, but have never tried it! Soon ;). Glad you stopped by!
We live up in Madison (near Huntsville) so we know all about how crazy Alabamians are about their college football! Your sign turned out perfect!
Also, thank you so much for joining us the past couple weeks at Merry Monday! We hope you enjoyed your time co-hosting with us because we sure enjoyed having you! 🙂
I have enjoyed it, it’s been so fun. Thank you for stopping by and thanks for having me! Both my parents are from Huntsville! Small world 🙂
Living in the Bay Area-we have three D-1 one teams -San Jose St, Cal and Stanford all within an hour’s drive. The thing is that the passion I see in other places is missing here. But that is life.
Go Cal, Beat Stanford and I love your sign very much.
http://csuhpat1.blogspot.com/2015/09/haywards-japanese-garden.html
Haha, thanks Patrick! We just moved to Stillwater, OK – home of the OSU Cowboys. They seem to be crazy about football here, which I kind of like. Go Pokes, War Eagle, and thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for linking up to Pin Worthy Wednesday, I have pinned your post to the Pin Worthy Wednesday Pinterest Board.