rusty robot "vintage" door sign diy

This post was my recent project audition for "So You Think You're Crafty" and guess what? I was lucky enough to make it into the regular competition phase. To all of the amazing competitors I was up against, well done. I hope I'm up to the challenge of meeting the bar you've all raised. The weekly competition is anonymous and starts in January; I'll let you know when the voting starts for the first round!

I don’t know about you, but I have pin boards full of so many projects over on Pinterest that I’m sure I’ll never get to all of them in this lifetime. I’m gonna have to start farming stuff out. You busy? ;)

One recent love that I’ve been pinning (over and over and over again) is vintage signage. I love old typography, vintage graphics, and weathered finishes. When my love of vintage signs recently dovetailed with my need for a fireplace fix-up, I ended up picking up a pair of vintage army green sheet metal panels from Bring (the local re-building store) for 50 cents each . . . and then, because I tend to eyeball things rather than measuring them, I had a whole panel leftover.

I decided to make my sweet kiddo a sign to go above the door of his room with the leftover panel. Since he’s two and a complete nut for robots,  his room is now labeled a “ROBOTICS LAB". He loves it! In fact, the rest of the afternoon he was sing-songing "robotics lab" over and over again and dancing by the door of his room. Win!

I hope you like my kiddo's rusty robot sign as much as we do! I'll consider it high praise if you sing about it later.

I have a second, similar project I'll be posting soon. In that post, I'll go into more detail about each of the steps, but I hope this photo collage tutorial will help you get started if you're someone who just needs a little push in the right direction. Basically, start with a surface that's a little gritty and old,  paint, then roughen it up and help it rust!