March of the Holiday Gift Signs 2005

The following is the process of building the Holiday Gift Signs last year (2005).  If you are thinking about purchasing a Gift Sign for yourself or someone else this year, the process will be very similar, so you can get a quick "peek" at the process here.  We are planning on documenting the build of the gift signs this year as well, but we are planning on doing it even more extensively, and we are planning to include a series a video posts in the mix as well.

One thing I would like to clarify that might confuse you if you read about last years signs.  Last year we carved the signs out of a material called High Density Urethane, which is an extremely common sign-making material which we build many of our signs out of.  This year (2006) we decided to go ahead and make the Holiday Gift Signs from Western Red Cedar, so they will be real wood this year.

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November 22nd, 2005

DSC03561, originally uploaded by SignsNeverSleep.

OK. So it's almost Thanksgiving. Christmas is just around the corner, so that means that the deadline for the 2005 Holiday Gift Signs is beginning to breathe down our necks.

If you have ordered one, thank you very much, and one of the additional "gifts" we would like to give to you (and enable you to give the recipient of the sign, if you so choose) is the ability to "watch" your sign being created, step by step, here in our shop.

So, over the next three weeks, you will be able to check in (almost daily) and watch as these signs progress through the shop, and occasionally catch quick glimpses of your sign as well.  Here are the sign blanks after they have been cut to shape.  Lee just needs to hit the edges with some sandpaper, and then they will be making a trip across the yard into the paint-shop for priming.

We are producing about 30 of these this year...

Lee, I still need that list from you so Vicki can lay them out...

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November 23rd, 2005

 

Here are some of the Holiday Gift Signs just after they have gotten a coat of primer, and their first coats of color (they will end up getting 3 coats of background color).  Just in case you were wondering, dark green and burgundy were the most popular colors (evenly split), there were two choices for Gray and no one wanted beige as the background color.  Will need to keep all of that in mind when we do next years gift signs!

I know that Vicki is working on getting the remainder of the designs for the signs finished, and I will be e-mailing them out to everyone by the end of the week.

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Currently it is snowing a bit here and about 20 degrees outside and very windy.  The weather gurus are saying that we may end up getting 5-6 inches on Thanksgiving day, which I would much prefer to rain. 

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November 30th, 2005

Here are some of the Holiday Gift signs fresh off the router.  We will be spending the day painting them...

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December 6th, 2005

DSC03645, originally uploaded by SignsNeverSleep.

Find the Holiday Gift Signs in this picture...  It is not hard, because currently they cover every available surface in the shop!  Seriously, you can't swing a cat in the shop without hitting a Holiday Gift Sign. (Don't worry, we don't actually swing cats in the paint-shop, that's what the wood-shop is for as the Hydraulic Automatic Cat Swinger is too large a piece of equipment to fit in the paint shop.  We were going to get one of the smaller machines, but they just did not throw the cats far enough!)

anyway, I think the lettering on all the signs is complete, and there is going to be some serious painting of black borders going on in the shop today.  Remember, we are shipping these out on Friday

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December 7th, 2005

Here is one of the first Holiday Gift Signs to be 100% completed (just about).  I think they look rather good once they are all finished.  The black borders all got painted yesterday, and the name of the game today is going to be doing the gold leaf and painting the backs of the signs black.  Yes, believe it or not, we actually paint the backs of the signs last.  Don't ask me why, we just always have done it that way.  Would it make more sense to paint the back first?  Yep, you betcha, but old habits die hard.

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December 8th, 2005

OK

So all the gold-leaf has been done, and the backs have been painted.  We have also taken care of all the hardware that is going to be needed for hanging the signs

Kristin and Vicki are pretty much spend the rest of the day cleaning the last of the gift signs up and getting them ready to ship.

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December 9th, 2005

DSC00008, originally uploaded by SignsNeverSleep.

So all of the Holiday Gift Signs are done, (except for one or two stragglers) and we ended up doing 30 in all...

Not too bad...

I am shipping 3 of them out UPS today, and the rest are going to be picked up by local folks.

Thank you to everyone that ordered

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So, if you are interested in ordering a Holiday Gift Sign for 2006, here is all of the information that you will need

Comments

[joe]

I am interested in doing a few signs for relatives and looking at this info i am confused.
Do you route the letters into the painted sign? It seems you painted them red or green first?