DIY Retail Signage Tutorial - New Studio Sign

D-I-Y Outdoor Retail Signage - the new colorful(er) studio sign!

Okay, so I'm not a big fan of commitment when it comes to my studio sign, business cards or other marketing materials.  Yes, they all coordinate, but I do like to change up my designs from time-to-time (yearly!).  With that being said, I never EVER change my logo, or my logo's colors.  More on that subject later.

Materials Needed:

Two Lawn Signs (or one if you're doing a one-sided sign)
1/2 inch Plywood
Saw (or get the hardware store to cut your plywood for you)
Liquid Adhesive (high strength/outdoor quality)
Clear Silicone Caulking
Vinyl Trim & Nails
Sign Post & Hangers

Husband who likes doing projects :-)

I admit, I love Vistaprint.  I designed my signs myself and uploaded my files, or you can use one of their pre-made designs.  I ordered my two large lawn signs from there for under $10 each, free shipping and I got 6% cash back through Ebates.  I LOVE Ebates, too - almost any online shopping you do can be done using Ebates click-through, you get cash back and there's NO catch - honest!  I got back $67 from my holiday shopping this year!  If you're interested in signing up, just follow this link - ebates.com -, you'll get a new member sign-up bonus (cash or giftcard) and I'll get a referral credit, too!

Here we go.  I am updating and replacing my outdoor retail signs from last year with polka dots and a more colorful, fun design, so I already have most of the work done.  I'll still go through the steps start-to-finish for you.

1. Cut plywood to the exact same size as your lawn signs.  Or have your husband do it fo you :-)  Your local hardware store might even do it for you, too.

2. Apply a high strength liquid adhesive to one-side of the plywood and line-up the edges so that they are all flush.  Smooth the sign onto the plywood using light pressure with your hand, then peel it off and set it aside face-down with adhesive exposed to activate the adhesive. Follow instructions according to label on adhesive.

3. After suggested time has lapsed, re-apply sign to plywood and press firmly to remove as much air as possible and get a good bond, again making sure your sides and corners line up and are flush.

4. Repeat for other side if making a double-sided sign.

5. Cut vinyl trim to size and wrap and nail around edges.  Sorry I didn't post a pic of this step - I did it the first time around! 

6. Apply a thin bead of clear silicone caulking to seal edges between sign and vinyl edging, as well as corners of sign were the vinyl meets and smudge with finger.  Let dry.

7. Attach hardware and hang.

So easy, looks awesome and is inexpensive on the business budget!

FIN :-)

Call the studio at 336.575.7088 or visit our website -

Winston Salem Newborn Photographers Fantasy Photography, LLC

{ TUTORIAL } DIY super easy Valentine's Day Backdrop under $3.00!

A super easy Valentine's Day backdrop for under $3.00?  Yes, please!

When you buy a 100 year old house, and you begin renovating and updating, you find that you have lots of scrap materials left over.  Baseboards, trim, mouldings, wainscoting, everything.  In an effort to cut our expenses this year (that's one of our 2013 business goals!), we've been looking for ways to switch things up without overspending on expensive backdrops and props, re-use items that we already have at the studio and recycle leftover materials from other projects that we do - which in turn, does require a bit of creativity and craftiness!  But I promise, it's super easy! 

Materials:

Streamers in multiple colors (we chose pink, red & white to fit our theme)

4-10 ft. leftover scrap wood (we had a 9 ft. long 2 in. piece of trim leftover from renovations)

Stapler (and staples!)

Tape Measurer

1. Decide what length you're going for.  99% of our sessions are children 4 feet and under, so we went with 4 feet. 

2. There's two ways to go about measuring - we measured our length on the floor and put a piece of tape to mark it so we wouldn't have to measure every cut, however you could choose to guesstimate and just level them off by cutting the bottom to length (think haircut, haha) once you've finish and got your backdrop hung up.  We wanted different lengths for a layered look, so we cut near the tape mark and left everything uneven in the end.

3. Wrap the edge of streamer over your wood so that it's completely wrapped around the wood, overlapping and staple.  Simple! 

 

4. Space your first color so that you can come in and fill in with your second and third colors. 

5. Once you've got one layer all the way across, come back in and staple a contrasting color in the spaces between your first layer (to fill in the cracks).  We chose to cut this layer a bit shorter for a layered effect.

6. That's it!  We used large clamps and clamped our backdrop (by the wood) to the stand that we already had.  We also used a 3 foot piece of baseboard and twine for a Kissing Booth sign that we had leftover, and some other props that we already had.  Okay, so I went out and bought the cute wooden letters to spell "LOVE" at Michael's, but you can justify that by purchasing an "N" at the same time and they're reusable - you can reuse the "O" and the "E", add the "N" and spell "ONE" for first birthday sessions :)

Here's how our backdrop turned out...super easy, super cute, and under $3.00!



visit our website at: Winston Salem Baby Photographers | Fantasy Photography, LLC