garage sale signs

We just celebrated the official start of summer at the cottage this past long weekend ... the Victoria Day holiday (also known as the May "24" weekend) is always a busy cottage weekend in Ontario.

The girls and I had our annual garage sale on Saturday. It rained all day ... lucky for us we have a garage at the cottage and were able to stay dry. I had so many positive comments about our garage sale signs that I thought that I'd share with you what I did.

I recycled some metal sign holders that were discarded in the open fields by our house ... these metal frames combined with plastic signs are used a lot during election time and throughout the year by small businesses. The metal frames are easy to stick into the ground (no hammers needed) ... and hold their shape really well when you add the fabric sleeve.

To make a fabric sleeve for the sign, I cut an old white curtain (bedsheets would work too) into a 48"x24" panel. Then I folded the fabric in half (24"x24") and sewed the two sides together so that I had an opening at the bottom that could slip over the metal frame. 

To keep the signs looking a little more professional looking, I created a 20"x20" document in my computer to format the type for my sign. I printed the document in sections on 8.5"x11" paper and taped all of the papers together. I placed the final (20"x20") paper under the fabric and traced the letters with a black fine point Sharpie permanent ink marker. I repeated this on both sides of the sign. Then I took a broader tip permanent marker and filled in the type on the larger letters.

    

I wanted to add some colour to the signs for visual impact ... so I added flowers to the bottom area. The flowers were from a Hawaiian lay that I bought at the dollar store. I simply hand sewed the flowers to the fabric with a centre button.

The cool thing about these signs is that it rained all day Saturday and they stood up really well compared to everyone else's cardboard signs. Many of the women who came to the cottage asked where we had the signs made ... my youngest daughter was quite proud to say that we made them ourselves!

The only thing that I will do differently next time is to only use Sharpie brand permanent ink markers. We used Sharpie brand fine tip markers and Staples broad tip markers. Both brands said that they were permanent ink - but it was very clear when it started raining which markers did not bleed!

 I also wanted to share this adorable card that I picked up in Walmart a while ago ... it's from Taylor Swift's line of greeting cards. Her card line is sooo cute ... great graphics, fun pictures and the words are perfect. Taylor Swift had a couple of concerts in Toronto on the long weekend ... my oldest daughter Haley was at the Friday concert ... needless to say, we listened to Taylor Swift songs all weekend at the cottage!

So happy that summer is here!