4th of July DIY Sign

A fun and patriotic 4th of July DIY Sign made creating a stencil from vinyl and incorporating Chipboard letters! This is the perfect sign to decorate with for the summer months or to honor a serviceman or veteran.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

Hey friends! It’s been a while since I made a new sign for my porch, so I decided to make a 4th of July Sign! I love how it turned out!

To make the sign, I first created the sign itself. If you have never created a similar sign, you can follow the tutorial in my Hello Summer sign to make it.

There are a few small differences in this sign vs in the Hello Summer sign.

This frame is a 20″x20″, not a 26″x26″.
I created this frame using ½″x 1″ wood. Almost similar to a fence post material, but it comes in long pieces. I wanted this frame to have a more rustic feel and texture. After I built the 4 sides, I stained it using Walnut Stain and then a quick top coat of Gray Stain.
The backing plywood is cut 17″x17″ and then I painted it white using a rough stroke pattern.

4TH OF JULY DECORATIVE SIGN

Now let’s get to the design!

Items Needed:

Cricut Maker or Cricut Explore Air 2
Knife Blade
12″x24″ Standard Mat
12″x12″StrongGrip Mat
Vinyl or Stencil Vinyl
Transfer Tape
Chipboard
Essential Tool Kit
Design Space File w/ Design
Navy Blue Paint
Red Spray Paint
Foam Paint Brush
Hot Glue Gun

To start open up the Design Space File with the design!

If you plan on making the sign the same size, then you can just hit ‘Make It,’ but if you want to adjust the design size, then hit ‘Customize.’

Once any changes have been made, go ahead and hit ‘Make It.’

Preview the mats and make sure the design looks like it should. You’ll load the vinyl (or stencil vinyl) on the 12″x24″ standard mat. And the Heavy Chipboard 2mm onto the 12″x12″ StrongGrip Mat. When cutting materials with the Knife Blade, you’ll need to secure your material to the mat using masking tape.

If you don’t have a Knife Blade, then you can totally still make this sign. I would just create a stencil using vinyl (or stencil vinyl) for the 2nd Mat too. Make sure and use the standard mat if you do this.

Hit ‘Continue.’

Select your machine and set your material to Vinyl and load your first mat.

Once your vinyl is done cutting, then you’ll need to change your material to Heavy Chipboard 2.0 on your Design Space screen.

You’ll also need to change out the Fine-Point Blade to the Knife Blade and move the star wheels all the way to the right on your machine.

Hit the ‘C’ button your machine to start the 2nd mat cutting!

While the Heavy Chipboard is cutting, you can weed the vinyl stencil and apply transfer tape.

Measure and place the vinyl stencils onto your board. When removing the transfer tape be very careful not to pull the stencil off the board. I usually use one hand to hold down the stencil securely while using the other hand to slowly pull the transfer tape off at an angle.

Once the stencils are put into the place, then use your fingers to go around the edge of the all the letters to make sure the seal is tight, so that paint won’t bleed outside the letters.

I then paint two LIGHT coats of Navy Blue paint over the two sayings.

When the paint is mostly dry (but not completely dry), remove the stencil.

As you can see there was one little area on the H that bled a little. DON’T STRESS if that happens! We’re going to sand the words! I actually like these kind of imperfections on signs when I’m going to be distressing!

I grabbed a sanding block and just made simple strokes across the words!