Family Name Sign

As mentioned earlier today, I took our blah living room wall to a fab Gallery Wall.  Part of that was a revamp of our family sign, to it's new updated self:

This was what it used to look like before:

It was a cream sign with vinyl letters stuck to it and then on top of that, kind of hard to see in the picture, in white vinyl script letters it says "Established 2001".  I think that using vinyl on a board was a 5-years-ago thing, and now it seems everyone has the letters painted on.  So that's the method I used for the updated look.

First I peeled off all the old letters and painted the whole board black.  Then I stuck down some contact paper that I had cut with my Cameo (I use contact paper because it's cheap, but you can use vinyl if you want).  Then I of course used my favorite trick to have crisp lines - paint over the sticker with Mod Podge.  If anything seeps, it will be the clear mod podge, not the paint color.  Perfect:

After that dried, I painted over the whole board with some Martha Stewarts paint (I can't remember the colors I mixed) that have this amazing pearly shine.  After that dried completely (the next day), I peeled the letters, revealing the black paint from underneath:

I then cut another stencil of words that said "Est. 2001" and painted that turquoise layer on top of everything.  I almost went with "circa 2001" but it didn't seem quite right:

That was it - - I think the sign is much more updated!  Looks great topping the Gallery Wall:

So if you don't have a family sign, grab a scrap piece of wood and make one - you can do it!!