Life as a LEO Wife

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A porch leaner is a great way to add a little Christmas decor to your front porch. Think you have to have a fancy cutting machine to make one? Great news, you don’t! You can make a porch sign with my free designs, a pencil, and your home printer. If you have a cutting machine, you can use my designs and cut them on vinyl to make quick work of a sign. Let me show you how I made a 6′ tall Christmas porch leaner with vinyl, and I’ll also explain how you can make one with paint!

It’s time for our monthly DIY Blog hosted by Tarah of Grandma’s House DIY. Our theme for this month is “thrifty projects.” So how is my Christmas porch sign thrifty? Well, I didn’t spend a dime to make this project! We had extra 6′ boards on hand for some previous projects, and I had leftover ribbon from wreaths that I had been commissioned to make so it was already paid for. I’ve had the vinyl that I used for a while as well. So, how is it thrift for you? I’m giving you the designs to use for the project for free! You can get a 6′ wood board from Lowe’s for about $7, and you can use a $.50 bottle of acrylic paint to paint the designs on if you don’t have a cutting machine. If you have a cutting machine, you only need one and a half sheets of $1.99 vinyl when you configure the designs on the cutting mat properly! So this project can be made for $10 or less!

Christmas Porch Leaner Supplies:

• 6′ piece of wood: mine came from Lowe’s and is 5.5″ wide
• white paint
• paint brush
• ruler
• my free printable or PNG designs
• 2.5″ wired ribbon for the bow (optional)- I used 3 different ribbon, but one will do.

Supplies for a Cricut:

• outdoor vinyl in red- I used a Siser matte red called holly (or other color choice)
• scissors
• transfer paper
• weeding tools & scraper for vinyl

Supplies for Carbon Copy Porch Sign Method:

• red paint (or other color choice)
• paint brush
• pencil
• printer

Paint the Wood

I really wanted to leave my wood natural because it is a piece of cedar wood. My husband felt I should paint it white, and I eventually agreed because it didn’t match our natural wood columns perfectly. So, I used an old can of satin white latex paint and gave the board two coats. Only one side just in case I want to use the other natural side for another season. The best of both worlds, painted and natural!

You don’t have to use latex paint; you can use anything you have on hand, acrylic, spray paint, or even stain. I used weathered gray stain on my every day welcome porch leaner and black spray paint on my Halloween leaner. You can get the free designs for both of those in those posts.

I didn’t get a picture of me painting the wood, but I know that you know how to do that!

Free Christmas Porch Leaner Designs

For personal use only. Feel free to download these free designs and print them or use on your Cricut projects for your own use at home. They are not for commercial use, not to be placed on items for sale. That helps me keep these printables, SVGs, and PNGs coming to you for free! Another note: you will not my logo overlay on your downloaded design. It is there to keep people from downloading the images straight from Google, or others from stealing them to use on their site. Thanks for understanding! Feel free to share this post for your friends and family to make their own projects with this design!

Whenever I make a porch sign, or any sign for that matter, I always share my designs with you because I love my readers! Remember, when you download the image, my logo overlay will not be on there.

Free Cutting Machine PNGs

These are the designs that you will upload to your cutting machine software if you’re using vinyl for this project. I have to share each letter and design with you separately because when I create them in one design and upload it to Design Space it doesn’t upload as separate letters that you can resize individually. So, I have to share them as individual downloads. After you upload the letters, you will have to resize them. Design Space has a mind of its own and places them on the canvas as huge letters instead of the size of the PNGs they were created as!

These are the sizes that I used on my porch sign (be sure to click the lock button so that the width and height change proportionately):

“Merry”- 5.329″W C”- 5.869″H “h”- 5.628″H “r”- 3.337″H “i”- 5.259″H “s”- 3.526″H “t”- 5.389″H “m”- 2.825″H “a”- 3.386″H manger- 5.055″W

Remember to cut two s’s for “Christmas.” If you’re using a Cricut and don’t want to go through all the trouble of downloading each letter, uploading it all, and then resizing everything you can use my Design Space design here.

Free Printable Porch Leaner Design

If you don’t have a cutting machine you can use the carbon copy method to easily make a beautiful Christmas porch sign. I have a full tutorial in this post where I was making a small sign.

The process is simple, so I’ll give you a quick rundown here. Print the designs below. Cut each letter, “Merry,” and the manger apart. You don’t have to cut them right along the lines, you just need to be able to lay them on the wood separately. Scribble on the back of each letter or design with a pencil. Get a good coat on it, covering them completely. Place them on the wood, spaced properly, and trace outline of each one, pressing down firmly. (Use the “s” twice.) Once you remove the paper you will see the outline of the design on the wood. Finally, just paint the outline and fill in the center. Easy, affordable, and you have just as beautiful a sign as you can get with a cutting machine!

Add Design to the Wood

Paint or transfer the vinyl onto the wood. I placed “Merry” about 10″ from the top of the board. Then I left about 2.25″ between each letter with just a bit more space between the “s” and the manger scene at the bottom. Transfer the vinyl onto the wood or carbon copy them from the printed letters then paint the outlines. If you need a longer written tutorial with photos for using vinyl, check out my “Welcome” porch leaner tutorial.

Add a Bow

Now that your design is on the porch leaner, all you need to do is make a cute bow for the top. I will be sharing a super easy loopy cheater bow next week, so be sure to enter your email address in the sidebar to get notified when I add new posts. Use the buttons in the sidebar to follow me on social media for updates as well.

If you need a tutorial now, this one is an easy bow that you can use on wreaths and other decor like this Christmas porch sign. This super easy loopy bow is great if you’re not good at gripping layers as you go.

Add hot glue to the back of your bow and place it at the top of the sign. My bow has seven loops with four 2.5″ tails.

Christmas Porch Leaner Video Tutorial

I hope you enjoy your beautiful Christmas porch sign & have a very Merry Christmas!

This is a blog hop, so keep reading to find the next stop on our tour!

On to Our DIY Blog Hop!

Tarah – Grandma’s House DIY | Our Top Thrifty Tips – How we Easily save over $1,000 a year!

Don’t go yet! There’s more to see!

There’s plenty more to see here on the blog! If you’re looking for something specific, use the search box in the sidebar to look it up. If not, you might enjoy these ideas. Don’t have time to read them all now? That’s ok, just click over to the posts using the pictures and pin them for later. You can also add Life as a LEO Wife to your favorites and check back for new ideas and free printables and SVGs every Wednesday and Saturday, as well as link parties with tons of shared ideas on Sundays and Thursdays!