Make Money Fast Creating Stunning Salvage Wood signs / Trash to Treasure

Hello YouTube friends and welcome to my channel. If you're new here my name is Deidre from Our Upcycled Life and I do lots of thrifting, upcycling, repurposing and DIY content and today's video is all about my best selling item, farmhouse signs. Whenever I'm out and about I always look on the roadside or at the wood pile or ask friends to save little bits and pieces of wood because I can turn anything into a sign and flip it and make a little bit of money. So I have some salvaged wood that I've had in a pile for a while. I'm going to turn them all into signs. There'll be lots of tips and tricks here for you to try yourself if you want to make some of these and make a little bit of extra money. When doing this process you don't need any special tools. All you need is a printer, some computer paper and some chalk paint and you're on your way to making fabulous farmhouse signs. This is some of the salvaged wood that I picked up. This one I love the routed edge on it, it's going to turn into a really beautiful sign and this one is fantastic. I found it in the wood pile, somebody had thrown it away and I saw potential in it because I can turn the inside of and look at this salvaged wood. It was probably an old door, has some hinges on it. I can upcycle this into something beautiful and this is my favorite find of all. I think it was probably from an old chair and it's the back but somebody had taken it apart. I see so much potential in this. I'm going to put a sign in the middle and I'm going to show you how I'm going to upcycle it. So we have lots of work so let's get started. First project that we're going to work on is, I think this is off the back of a chair. I found it in the wood pile at the dump and it probably had broken and this was the off of the top. One bonus was somebody had already painted this black which I love so I'm just going to distress it and make it look rustic and not repaint it. I used an 80 grit sandpaper and I love the color of the wood peeking through, just finished it off perfectly. Now I'm going to use my wax and I'm just going to wax that whole frame and it just makes everything pop even more and the back of it I'm eventually going to paint it but for now I've just cut a piece of press board and that's what we're going to turn into our sign. I painted it with some black chalk paint and then I'm putting some candle wax all around the outside just to give it a distressed look and it's going to fit right into the back of that frame perfectly. Now we're going to get at the graphics. If you've been following along you know I love using my Mod Podge reverse graphic transfer method. That's how I'm going to make this sign. Using my Mod Podge mat I've printed these graphics off on my laser jet printer making sure to reverse the text on regular computer paper making sure that it's lined up exactly where I want it and I've let it sit for 24 hours now dampening the paper and then rubbing it all off and we're left with beautiful graphics on this piece of press board that we're going to put in the back of that chair. I'm going to seal everything up with some polyacrylic sealer and then I had these little tiny nails and I'm going to nail that press board into the back of that chair frame. So here's the before that old frame off the back of a chair I think and I have upcycled it into this gorgeous sign and I love this quote. It's available in my Etsy store if you want to grab it and make one of these signs for yourself. Always be on the lookout for any type of salvage wood that you can turn into a sign because they sell really well. Next project that I'm going to tackle is this barn board with the hinges. It looks like it was obviously a door of some sort and I'm going to upcycle it into something beautiful. I had this plaque that I picked up at the thrift store was stained some of the lettering had rubbed off so I painted it with some of my black chalk paint and then I dried it to speed up the process with my heat gun. This was a piece of paper that I printed on coffee stained it really wrinkled it up and I'm going to decoupage it on the front of that plaque just using some mod podge matte. Once the mod podge has dried I'm going to seal everything up with a matte polyacrylic sealer. The nice thing about all of these projects is the only cost that I have in them is a little bit of the cost of product. Everything else was found and was free that way I can make a good profit when I go to sell it and I had these rusty old screws that I saved off another project and that's how I attached the plaque to this barn board. I love the way that this turned out this actually might be staying with me that's one of the problems I have I create these things and then I can't get rid of them. Okay next piece of salvage wood I have absolutely no idea what this was but somebody spent a lot of time cutting this out and then they just discarded it so saw the potential brought it home this one is going to turn out fantastic I have a really great idea I'm going to layer up lots of chippy paint on this. First step I'm using my candle wax I'm putting candle wax all around the outside and the inside of this salvaged wood and then I'm painting over top of that with some homemade black chalk paint if you've never made homemade black chalk paint I'll put a link down below in the description so you can make a batch yourself because it works fantastic. Now we're going to be really aggressive with this candle wax I'm applying it over all of this black chalk paint anywhere you put candle wax is going to have the paint that you put on top of it not stick very well and I have got this beautiful acrylic paint that I'm putting on top of this this is just acrylic paint that I picked up at the dollar store but I love the teal color of it. Once it was dry I went back with the candle wax again and was really aggressive applied it all over got out that yellow paint that I love I'm almost at the end of this tester with the yellow paint let it dry completely and then I'm putting the candle wax on top of that again. Now I've dried that paint completely and I've also softened up that wax with the heat from the heat gun using my scraper I'm scraping away at that paint and anywhere there was that candle wax you're going to bring up those colors from underneath so look at all of this beautiful chippy texture that I've created just with a little bit of paint and candle wax on a free piece of wood. Now for the back I just found this piece of wood I had in my stash and I'm going to paint it with some black chalk paint and then I'm going to put some of that yellow on and we're going to give it a little bit of a textured chippy look also before we turn it into a sign. Now all of my signs I sell locally I'm very fortunate but there's many ways that you can sell them Facebook marketplace on Etsy you can go to craft sales or if you have a booth these all sell really well and when you don't have to pay anything for the wood all you have is the cost of your products to make them you can have a higher profit and have more money in your pocket and you can be really creative in the process. I designed this graphic and I think it's going to work perfect on this piece of wood doing my Mod Podge reverse graphic transfer method. Now I have a full tutorial on how you can size your graphics I had to do this in two or three steps so I can get all the right sizes of the graphics to fit on this piece of wood and it sized up and worked perfectly with this graphic it's available in my Etsy store if you want to grab this one if you're a tea lover it's a must graphic. I'm going to use my hot glue gun and press that piece of wood in its spot and then I'm going to go in and just tack it in with some of those little nails and paint the back so it looks nice and neat. Now I hope you're finding lots of tips and tricks and inspiration here so if you find some salvaged wood of your of your own you can make some signs. I'm just taking some 80 grit sandpaper and I'm sanding this down because it had a really glossy finish on it and I want my paint to be able to adhere to it so taking it right down to the bare wood. I have some wood filler I'm going to fill up those holes let it dry and then get painting. When I'm making my signs and I want them to have that distressed old look I always start with the base black. I find when I'm sanding it afterwards that black peeks through and it just gives it that aged look but that's my preference you don't have to do that step. Now if you missed my video on how to DIY your own silicone molds you have to go back and watch it after this video because you can make your own molds and you can incorporate it into so many different DIY projects. This is a mold that I used with a stamp and I am going to incorporate this into my sign using some air dry clay pressed it into the mold and I'm just going to make sure the back is nice and flat and then we're going to peel it out and I have this gorgeous air dry clay piece that I can put on my sign. I'm going to clean it up a little bit and then set it aside and let it dry. Now this is the next day I used my Gorilla Glue to glue that clay embellishment on the top and I'm just putting on a couple coats of my white homemade chalk paint and taking in and just dry brushing around that mold with a bit of that black chalk paint and one last distressing around the outside. If you're a seamstress or love to sew you're going to love this graphic same process Mod Podge reverse graphic transfer method. As far as making signs this is the most affordable way you don't have to buy vinyl you don't have to buy stencils all you need is a little bit of Mod Podge paper and a printer and you don't even need a laser jet printer you can do this process with an inkjet printer also and I have some videos comparing those two printers together so you can see the difference. I printed these graphics off on two or three different sheets sizing them up the way that I wanted them to fit on the sign and it is absolutely beautiful I love it I love this graphic again it's available in my Etsy store so I've taken that boring piece of pine and this is what I've turned it into. So if you're looking for a way to make a little bit of extra spending money making signs is the way to go and they always sell really well. I hope today's video has been helpful and you've learned some tips and tricks to sign making. If you love this video I'm sure you'll love either of these too. Thanks for watching, have a great day and we'll see you in the next video. Take care!