"Dream" Sign DIY

As a part of my new room, I wanted some sort of wooden sign with a word I want to be reminded of often. People who know me, know I would much rather "figure out how to make it myself" than go buy whatever item I have in mind (in most cases). 

I acquired some old wooden ladders, and employed Christian to help me tear them apart. We ended up pulling off two of the steps and then the cross supports to use for my project. (Another thing about me, I rarely totally plan it out, I pretty much just get into it and see what happens.) 

I told Christian what I wanted and he grabbed all manner of power tools and did it all while I stood 10 feet away, closed my eyes, and covered my ears. 

He cut the two steps to be the same length roughly and then cut three supports for the back.

The wood was old and one of the steps was cracking so he used wood glue to fill it in. I was no longer closing my eyes at that point. 

Then he glued the two steps together.

And attached the supports to the back. After that, we left it to dry for 24 hours. 

Once it was dry, I wiped the whole thing off, and checked to make sure everything was secure. 

Then I printed off the letters I needed in a font I liked, and cut them out. They ended up being too big, so I cut them down to make them fit. 

I was going to just trace around the letters with a pencil and then paint them, but the pencil wasn't showing up. 

I grabbed a couple pieces of paper and measured and cut it to be the same size as the sign. Then I laid out the letters on top and taped them down. 

Making it up as I went, I took the paper and letters to the window and used a pencil to trace around the letters on the back side of the paper using the sun to show up the shadows. That ended up being a wasted step because I decided to make the paper into a stencil and cut around the letters, then went back and taped all the edges.

Once the stencil was finished, I taped it onto the sign and got my paint. I used a flat brush, and did two quick coats of regular acrylic (?) paint. It was not kid paint, but it wasn't wall paint either. If I had wanted to the use the stencil again I should have made it out of card-stock. As soon as I finished painting the letters I pulled off the stencil and let it dry. That didn't take long at all. 

To hang it up, I turned it over and used a heavy duty stapler to put two staples into the supports. They didn't go all the way into the wood, which was good. I then threaded heavy wire through the staples and used pliers to twist the wire several times around itself. 

I may end up hot gluing some burlap flowers onto it later, I just haven't decided yet. 

There are other projects I have in mind for my room, and if I think of it I'll do something like this again so y'all can see what I did. 

Later on, I'll post pictures of where they all end up in my new room.

The reason I chose the word, "Dream," is because I don't want to only do what I think I can safely do, I want to reach beyond that and dream big. How far can I go? What can I do for Him? But I don't want to just dream, I want to act. And along the way, maybe inspire others to do the same.