 Hey guys, it's Jen from iCreateCrafts. In today's video I'm going to show you the easy way to create your own DIY wood round sign using your Cricut machine and some vinyl. This sign was so much fun to make and create and I hope you really enjoy this tutorial. Give me a thumbs up and hit that subscribe button if you haven't already as I'll have many more DIY how-to tutorials. This thing you want to do is create a file. If you already know how to create a file Please feel free to skip ahead, but for those of you who are new, I hope this part of the tutorial helps you out Please let me know if you have any questions So the first thing you want to do is start out with some text So I'm going to go to the text box on the left here and I'm going to click on that and I'm going to write in welcome and That's just going to bring up the regular Cricut font and I'm going to change it So what I'm going to do first is actually make it a little bit bigger so we can see it and then while it's already Selected I'm going to go up to the font box up here and I'm actually going to go into system here And I'm going to type in rainbow and I'm choosing this Goldie rainbow one I've actually downloaded this font from defont.com if you're not sure how to do that I created a video on this showing you how to take a font from defont and put it into design space So if you are new at this and you'd like to know how to do it go back I'll leave a link below in case you're interested in that the thing with this font is you see how far apart they are I want them to be touching so there's a few different ways you can do this But I'm going to show you the easiest way so the easiest way to do this is with it selected already I'm going to go up here to the letter spacing up here And I'm just going to push this down arrow and get them as close as possible to each other And I don't want them to overlap So I'm going to make it a little bit larger here and I can kind of still see the M getting attached to the E here So I'm going to try one more And that looks better to me so now you can see the W is way too close So now for the next part I'm actually going to hit the ungroup button up here and that's going to just leave every letter ungrouped and let it be Individual so I'm just going to take the W push my left arrow a few times and give it a little bit of a space in between So now you want to make sure that you attach this or weld it So I actually like to weld my my images that I have like this my letters So I'm going to push weld and the reason I did well weld instead of attach is because when you cut this out Cricket or your design space will cut this out with little pieces here where you attached Rather if you do weld it'll cut it as one whole piece. So that's why I do it as a weld instead So now it is all attached together So I'm just going to shrink this up for now and I'm going to type in my next text So I'm going to do also the word we're so glad you're here So I'm just going to keep the welcome here for now and then do the same thing go to the text box and because I use the Goldy rainbow it's going to leave that font now So I'm just going to leave it the way it is right now and then I'll change it in just a minute So here it is here's the Goldy rainbow as well. So as you can see, I really don't like how it looks I'd like to have it more of just a regular one. So with the selected I go back up to the font Box up here. I'm going to go to all and then I'm going to cancel out of there So this is going to show me every single font that I have available I do have the cricket design space yearly subscription So I have a lot of these fonts included with my subscription So I'm just going to click through and see, you know, which one looks good with this I'm actually going to make this guy a little bit bigger. I'm going to have this up here and then the year We're so glad you're here right down here So I'm going to shrink my screen really quick make this a little bit smaller and I'll show you guys what I mean I'm going to make my screen a little bit bigger And I'm going to put it down here kind of Where it overlaps a little bit I think But actually I like the way this font looks so I might leave it But I'm going to change the width and the height really quick So I'm going to click this unlock box here and then just drag it over make it just a little bit bigger Then I'm going to select both of them and bring it down because it always brings that extra board up here And then it's hard to see so I'm actually going to see if there's a different font that I like so I have it selected I'm going to do the same thing go to the font box and then just kind of look So like I was saying some of these are free Because I have the yearly subscription Other way some of them you have to pay for yet, but I'm just quickly going through I'm just trying to find something that's you know kind of bold and kind of looks nice together So that's kind of neat. I like this one So I think I might leave it as this one But I didn't want this to be a little bit smaller than the top one So the last thing I want to do is actually resize this. I have a wood piece that I purchased from Menards It's a 15 inch round panel So I want it to go in the circle in the middle of it So I'm going to show you another quick tip if you don't know this know this maybe I'm going to click on shapes and I'm going to grab a circle And I'm going to change the circle to be the exact size of my Round sign so with it selected. I'm just going to go up here and change it to 15 So it changes it to be 15 by 15. I did not unlock it up here I'm going to pull it over and I'm actually going to change the color of this just for the purpose of the video So here it is white so as you can see your words are on the back So to change that click on your image and then you want to send to front and then that'll bring it right up Here to the front for you and I'm going to do the same with this one So here it is here and click on a range and send to front so here. So this is what I like I'm going to shrink my screen a little bit So this is the actual size of my sign So I like to visualize to see what it's going to look like So you can kind of visualize it or you can even take like a tape measure and you know Measure how big you want your sign to be sometimes I even take my cricket mat and kind of go and put it up There and see how big but this way you can actually visualize it. So I don't want it in the center I want it kind of down further on the side here because I'm going to paint or actually stain all of this And then I'm going to use some tape and I'm going to tape it here in the middle And then I'm going to stain or color black or white I haven't decided yet with a different color and then I'm going to put this on and then paint over it as It's kind of a stencil so once I get that far you guys will know what I'm talking about But this is just a way that I like to do it just to visualize it to see what it actually will look like So I'm just placing this where I want it to go So now you can kind of see what it's going to look like so I Like it right there I think and then I'm going to take like I said painters tape and put it here and then down here and then have it a Different color again, you could do this two different ways You could cut this out just in vinyl and put it onto the sign itself or you can paint it And I like doing it that I like painting it It just looks a little bit better and it lasts a lot longer. So I Actually got lucky with this. I like the size of it already. I think I'm just going to leave it But just for purposes, I'm going to pull it up to 100% and we'll kind of see more what it looks like here So as you can see it's the full size This is actually the size of the sign and I like it down further because then you can put like some greenery Or whatever you want up here So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave the top part alone So I'm actually going to get rid of the circle So I'm just going to X out of that and then I'm going to select both of these and I'm going to click attach And I did that because this is the exact way that I want it to be. It's the exact size It's everything that I want it to be so the next part that I'm going to do is just click on make it So here's what it looks like on your mat I actually like to give myself a little bit of room at the top and at the sides So that when it cuts out I can cut out a little extra piece on the bottom here and then I can easily put it onto my sign And I won't have to worry about you know when I go to paint it I won't have to worry about getting off the edges here if it's right at the top So I give myself a little bit of space on each side and then when I cut it I'll cut it down here a little bit and then I'll attach it to my sign So I'm just going to click continue quick and I'll show you which one I use so if you guys are new to my Channel welcome and if you know me you guys know that I don't always buy Cricut brand I buy whatever is on sale or whatever I can get you know off of Amazon quickly So I just buy whatever is on sale at the time on Amazon So I'll leave a link below to the ones that I use But when I'm doing my base material here, I just grab this stencil vinyl one here I go to browse materials and I clicked on this one and kept it as my favorite So I'm just gonna use that one and I don't change anything here I'm gonna make sure I have the fine point blade in and I'll tell you guys what I was having the hardest time Cutting my vinyl out and I thought I was doing something wrong or my mat wasn't sticky enough I actually just bought I think it was 36 brand new blades and That did the trick so if you're having problems with it not cutting properly or even before I had to go to pressure and I had to Do more just because it wasn't cutting hard enough for me So now that I changed my blade it definitely works a lot better. So I'm actually gonna just use regular black stencil vinyl I'm gonna cut this out. I'll weed it out and then I'll show you the next step I wanted to show you guys really quick. I'm using 631 not 651 vinyl and just wanted to show you that really quick There's really no difference the only difference is is this one is not as sticky as the 631 and it's not permanent because I'm going to be Going over paint. I don't want to pull up the Vinyl with the paint. So I'm just gonna put this in the machine. Let it do its job But I just want to make sure is to tell you guys that when you're using this on when you're using anything on paint I would always suggest using the 631 Which is not permanent So you want to be able to pick it up after you're done painting and not pull up the paint when it's coming Everybody say hi to Ray So he's my little buddy. So I just want to show you that really quick. I put it on here I use my squeegee. I push it down really hard and now I'm just letting the machine do its job And then when it is done, I will just use my light bright and weed it and then I'll show you the next step of prepping your wood Right guys, so I forgot to mention a few things. So this is the Oracle 631 Which is not permanent when I just said but I wanted to show you a couple of things So these are the weeding tools that I buy these I buy from Harbor Freight They are under $4 for all six pieces. Sorry five pieces um I don't buy a lot of Cricut brand and this works so much better than the Cricut weeding brand that I always buy So I wanted to show you this really quick I'm going to be doing a video tutorial on where I buy my things and how much I spend versus if you buy a Name brand like for example, I have these Little blades so this came in a pack of 36 and it comes in the three different colors the yellow the red and the blue Which are different blades for your machine depending on what you want to cut So I bought these off of Amazon for much cheaper than I would have bought just two Cricut brand ones And then the last thing I'm going to talk about really quick is this light bright turn it off I can show you guys really quick. So they don't sell these anymore. This is the Cricut brand I actually cannot find these anymore I even looked on their website and then I couldn't find it but they have similar things on Amazon for sale like that. So I'll show you can see it here It's kind of hard to see but once you turn the light on you can see exactly where your Cricut cuts and The last thing on here that I want to tell you guys about is you want to reverse wheat this So instead of pulling the vinyl up on the corner and leaving the words You're actually going to want to peel the words back But make sure you leave all the little holes that are the little circles that are in here like in the G And the A and the D You want to keep those on there But just wanted to show you those quick things really quick So I'm going to reverse weed this and I'll show you what it looks like and then I'm going to show you how to prep the board Okay, so here is my file that I weeded out like I said I did a reverse weed So I just took out all the lettering And here is the sign that I'm going to be using this was purchased at Menards. I think it was under eight dollars It's just all glued together and it's one big piece It is very well-sanded, but I still take it a step further and go more. So I just have these Little sand pieces and this one is a hundred and eighty grit and this one is three twenty So I'm just going to use the 181 and I'm just going to lightly see I'm going to go in the way of the grain So it's a no with that you can tell it's much smoother now, but it has a lot of dust on it So I'm just going to go ahead and take the three twenty and do the same thing That just smooths down some of the imperfections and the little lines in it So then I just take a you can take a rag or a piece of paper or paper towel and just wipe it off You want to make sure you get it all off really well It's when you paint you don't want to have any of these pieces on here And then I just have some paper or newspaper down and I'm just going to be using these so I have this stain here and Well, it's called weathered gray or I have this other one that's a dark walnut And then I'm going to be using this chalkboard matte paint And then you're going to need some painters tape here some little sponge brushes makeup brushes and Then these are called D hooks. I got these off of Amazon It's for the back when you're finished and you want to hang it up and just a pair of scissors I have some dollars to our transfer tape and I have my little squeegees so I can do my transfer tape on my Binal and then my little weeder that I bought from Harbert Freight So once you have you're starting to really well-sanded you want to make sure that there's nothing on here You don't want to feel anything hard. You want to be nice and soft So I did the front and the back and the sides as well before you just want to make sure you go with the grain So the next part would be figuring out what color you want the background So I'm going to choose to do it this gray color this weathered gray So I'm going to shake it up just a little bit Open it up and show you what it looks like. We've been assigned with this color before and I really liked it So it's just this pretty grayish color So I'm just going to take a rag you can wear gloves if you want and really don't wear them Just watch my hands really quick and then again just go in the same direction of the grain and depending on how dark you want it You can do a couple different layers of stain. I tend to just do one or two But again just going back and forth in the direction of your grain And then you want to get the front and the back and I might do two coats on this one But then once it dries, I'll do another coat and then once it dries after that You want it to fully dry before you even work with the next step, which is taking your Weeded vinyl and sticking it on there So you want to wait until this is completely dry. So I'm gonna go ahead and give this two coats Let it dry and then I'll show you the next step All right, so I let this completely dry actually let it dry overnight. It's nice and soft I don't have any hard spots on it So the next part to do is to figure out where you want to put your file So like I said before I kind of want it not centered kind of a little bit off on the edge here But now looking at it. I don't know. I think I might want it centered here So I'm just gonna take some painter's tape that I have here. I have some cutoff and I'm just gonna kind of you can do this any way you want. I normally just eyeball it I'm lucky. I guess so I get straight but you can take a ruler or whatever you want You can even take like a Cricut mat and kind of figure it out But I cut this on the back so it has a straight line here I know in the video I was saying that I wanted to have more room down here on on the sides But I got a little carried away. So I have to be careful with the spot up here So I made it nice and straight so I can kind of guide my Tape with this, but I'm just seeing I don't want it. I kind of want it more Down further so I can have some greenery and stuff up here. So it's not directly in the center, but I'm just using my Vinyl here to kind of guesstimate where I should put this So like I said, I have a piece of tape here and I'm just gonna line it up Kind of with the Vinyl here and again, you can use a ruler or whatever you want But this is just I'm taping this off that I can paint underneath here Here so I can paint all this part I think I'm gonna paint all this black and then have the words white kind of like how it looks now So I'm just gonna take another piece of painter's tape And then just do the same thing kind of going on the line here Move this away And then I'll flip this upside down So I'm not gonna do the sides of it. I'm just I'm not gonna do the bottom of it I'm just gonna do the sides. I'm just worried about the edges here Okay, so next what you want to do is take your scraper and scrape this down really hard because you don't want any paint to come up underneath this I'm not worried about the top part. I'm just worried about the top here and then the bottom here And then you want to make sure your edges are on really well Because I'm not gonna paint on the back of this. I'm only gonna paint on the side So with that being done, it looks good here. Like I said, you could take a ruler and kind of see You can need to go any more or get it in the center, but I'm just gonna use these two paints I have this Milk paint finish eclipse. It's like a black color And then I also have this rust-o-leum chalk in white color. So I'm thinking I'm going to do The background here black and then do the letters white. So the first thing you want to do is paint the back color So I'm just gonna take the paint here and then I'm going to be using Just a little foam brush here from the dollar store that I got And I shook this up really well and then I'm just gonna go ahead and paint all this on here And you can do however many coats you want to do I think I might just do two coats because I have stain underneath this So I'm just gonna finish this up Let it dry completely and then I'll do it another coat, but I'm not gonna do the back of it I'm just gonna do the sides. So I'm gonna follow the tape around to the edge So I'm just gonna finish this up. I'll pass for this part and then once it dries. I'll show you the next step Okay, so I let the paint completely dry. The next step is to take the tape off carefully so that you don't peel your paint up You can see that the paint gave me a really good clean edge. I Pre-cut some transfer tape and I will lay it onto my vinyl stencil carefully Starting at one end and pushing down as I go Once I get it completely on I will use my scraper and scrape down really hard to make sure that the transfer tape has a good bond onto the vinyl Peel back the backing and carefully figure out where you want to put the stencil I'm trying to line it up with the top and bottom edge of my gray color Once you get it on you can use a scraper once again to push down the stencil onto the board This part is really important as you don't want any bubbles or pieces sticking up When you have it on really well start to peel back the transfer tape Taking care of the edge pieces and little center pieces that will try to come up on you I like to once again use my scraper and my fingers to completely pull down the vinyl and feel for any pieces that are sticking up When you get your stencil onto your board The next step is to use makeup sponge and some paper towel and dab some of the paint off onto the paper towel You don't want globs of paint on your sponge And you want to lightly tap up and down on your sign with the sponge as you can see I'm using the same color as the base color. This will help with bleeding If you use the same color and do light up and down taps This will help with the paint not seep under your stencil Once your base color paint dries you'll start on the main color You'll be using doing the same technique you just used lightly dabbing the color on your sign Light up and down motions and light light paint on your sponge Once your first coat is completely dry do a second coat the same way Once your second coat is dry you can peel away your vinyl stencil leaving just the paint behind You can see that I have really crisp lines because I did the base color the same color as the board itself Next you will use your weeding tool and peel back all the vinyl pieces carefully not to pull up any extra paint All right at this point. We're almost finished I like to use some spray Mod Podge to seal my paint on my board in case I want to hang it outside Again, you need to let the Mod Podge completely dry before going to the next step The next part is using the D clips. I'll leave a link below to everything I used including these I like to use one of my Cricut mats to size up where I should put the clamps and mark a dot where I want to put them I Carefully screw in the little screws tight enough that they will stay but not too tight that they'll leave a mark This last part is up to you you can decorate it any way you want I'm using some greenery I bought from Walmart and some hot glue. I Tend to go a little overboard on my glue, but I want to make sure it really sticks. I Also created a bow. I'm still learning how to create them, but I don't think it turned out too bad I don't think so. Anyway, and I glued that on top of the greenery So the last part is to use some more ribbon to attach to the back so you can hang your sign I'm just using some wired ribbon that I bought from the Dollar Tree. Nothing fancy and Just tie a knot at each end and snip off the ends So here is the finished sign. I really love how this turned out. I think it's gonna sell really well I love the greenery that I added to it. I picked it up at Walmart. I believe it was The bow could be changed, but that's all I really had on hand But I hope this tutorial was helpful and it helped you out and I hope you go and make your own Please leave a thumbs up and a comment below if you have any questions and hit that subscribe button If you haven't already happy crafting everyone