I See London I See France DIY Paper Sign for the Bathroom

Those beautiful DIY farmhouse wood signs are wonderful aren’t they?  They are such a fun and inexpensive way to decorate your home.   I know that Hobby Lobby had all kinds of cute signs and none of them fit into my carry on suitcase,  AND at that time I wasn’t able to find one that said I see London I see France.  Fiddling around I came up with a really cheap and easily updateable DIY Paper Sign idea for the bathroom that I think your going to love.

This brown paper sign is so easy to do, and you don’t need a cutting machine, or a stencil, and if you use the already designed I See London I See France templates, it takes about half an hour to make one.

I love the idea of using craft paper and placing the word art in a frame.  Not only can you update the saying quickly, once your bored with the saying you don’t have to store it for eons trying to figure out what to do with it.  A quick refresh with a new saying and your good to go.

Supplies for Making Brown Paper Farmhouse Wall Art

You will need a few simple supplies.

A white frame. Mine is a IKEA Ribba 16 by 20″ frame I got at a garage sale for $4.  It was still in the wrapping, like who does that?  Yippee for me.

Brown paper at least 12″ wide, and two feet long.  I used brown wrapping paper from Michaels, left over from Christmas, you can also use kids craft paper.

Pencil, good quality eraser and a ruler.

Carbon paper

Free I See London I See France Printables

A white chalkboard paint pen

DIY Farmhouse Bathroom Sign Tutorial

Take the frame apart leaving  the mat.  Measure the opening of the frame mat.

Once you have the opening dimensions, add two inches to the width and length.  Using the ruler measure and cut your paper.

Adding the Transfer

Print out the two printables, one for I See London the second for I see France.

Lay the printables out on the good side of the brown paper.  You can choose to just eye ball it but I measured mine to make sure it was centered.

Start by finding center and then measuring from center to the outside edge of your lettering.  Use the same measurement from the top of the letter  “I” on the I See (London) and the F from (I see) France.

Once you have the templates placed to your liking make light markings in the corners using a pencil.

Remove the templates place the carbon paper over the brown paper and using the corner markings reapply the templates.

Carefully outline all the lettering, the wording for “I see” is narrow and only needs a single light line.  For the larger London and France the wider portions trace the outsides.

Once traced use a clean white eraser and remove as much of the carbon as possible.  Make sure to clean the edge of your eraser regularly, by rubbing it onto a scrap piece of paper until the carbon wears off.  Cleaning your eraser reduces the smudges.

Reducing the amount of carbon improves the quality of the white chalk painted pen.  It prevents the excess carbon from discolouring the white paint.  On the larger sections of the lettering you can redo an area to whiten it, but on the single line areas its difficult.

Write over the lines with a white chalk pen, fill in any gaps.  The chalk pen dries on contact so I  once the lettering is done on your farmhouse sign, you can place it into the frame.

Placing the Brown Paper Sign into the Frame

Lay the lettering chalk side up.  Place the mat over top of the paper. Make a pencil mark on all four sides.

Place the mat back into the frame.  Fold the paper over where the lines are and then place it over top of the mat.

Place the IKEA frame hangar across the back of the frame cardboard so it positions the frame with a portrait alignment.  Place the frame backing onto the back of the frame, lift the frame up and check the placement.  Adjust if needed, otherwise close the back by folding the little tabs in place.

This Brown Paper Farmhouse sign is part of our bathroom refresh.  One morning we saw a sale on granite ends, so we redid three bathrooms.  Unfortunately that meant replacing mirrors, tiles, so we did the lights.  Once we paid for all that the final decor has to be very inexpensive, the closer to free the better.

Here is an idea of what the rest of the bathroom looks like.  The original ugly laminate had a section that came out over the toilet (awful) getting the granite cut to match was hundreds more so it was an easy decision to leave it.

The little DIY  shelf and shower curtain I will share on the blog soon.  Hubs was able to match the tile around the tub surround to new tile for a small back splash.  If interested here is the tutorial on the tile installation.

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