I am loving the use of old vintage signs as part of wedding decor. I have seen so many beautiful ways this has been implemented but my favourite just has to be the rustic, old country style kind. I found a beautiful shop on Etsy called The Back Porch Shoppe which sells ready made and custom antique looking signs such as the one below.

Love sign by The Back Porch Shoppe on Etsy

I would love to learn how to make these signs but I am sure it isn’t easy. I did some reseach and found out the following techniques on how to antique wood from Bozzle:

To Age Painted Wood

• For your coat always use off-white rather than a stark white, as it looks older to start with. The same applies to all other colors; always choose the duller, more sedate tone of the color you want. You will need to work with three colours; an old wood colour; your undercoat color and your top-coat colour.
• Use enamel varnish for your wood color, emulsion for your other colours.
• Give the wood a coat of enamel varnish of your main wood color, well thinned.
• Once dry, apply blobs of beeswax using your fingers or a small brush, dragging generally in the direction of the grain.
• Leave the wax to dry overnight.
• Carefully apply a thick coat of your undercoat color (a paler, duller version of your top-coat colour).
• When the undercoat is thoroughly dry, apply a very thin top-coat (two thirds water).
• When the top-coat is barely, say within an hour, start scraping and rubbing off the lumps of beeswax, ensuring you get every piece off.
• With a very fine sandpaper or sponge sanding pad, soften all the edges and go all over the surface removing some of the top-coat.
• Finally coat the whole surface with beeswax polish or a satin varnish.

Antiquing Wood

• This is basically to give an instant ageing effect; common in theatre and film work.
• Mix up the antiquing solution by thinning beeswax with turpentine until runny.
• Thicken the solution with rottenstone (powdered stone dust) or fullers earth.
• Apply firmly with a brush, making sure you fill every hole, groove, crack or recess on the surface.
• With a soft cotton cloth wipe off all the excess immediately you have finished brushing. Take care that you don’t lift it from cracks or deep grain.
• When the solution has hardened (4 – 6 hours), polish with a soft cloth.

Antique Cracking Effect

• See that the surface  is clean and then brush or spray on a coat of clear spirit varnish.
• Allow this to become thoroughly dry and then coat the whole surface with a solution of concentrated glue and hot water or alternatively, dextrine and warm water.
• Within a few minutes of application, this will have the effect of cracking the varnish film into irregular square or oblong formation.
• If desired, two coats of varnish may be applied instead of one, and the thicker the coating and the softer the varnish, the wider will be the crack formation. Thus, a very thin film of hard varnish will produce very small squares.
• Allow the cracking solution to dry thoroughly and then rub over the work with a lintless rag lightly charged with ready-bound drop black, umber, sienna, or other suitable pigment, well thinned with turpentine. The color will penetrate the cracks and can be rubbed off the remainder of the surface by means of another rag, moistened with turpentine or white spirit.
• After allowing several hours for drying, take a sponge dipped in warm water and go over the work to remove the glue or dextrine coating.

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