DIY EYE CHART SIGN (CARBON PAPER TECHNIQUE)

February 2, 2023

2 mins read

I've been eyeing (ha! no pun intended) this DIY eye chart tutorial from the Design, Dining, & Diapers blog for quite some time now. After venturing out alone for the first time with little man the other day I decided to swing by our local Goodwill to see if they had any old art or signs I could use to make my own eye chart. Although not quite as big as I was hoping for, I did stumble upon this personalized kid's sign for a $1.99.

After getting the sign home I quickly introduced it to my good ol' friend, Mr. Spray Paint.

For the text I decided to use one of my favorite lyrics from the Lumineer sign "Hey Ho".

While preggo the line "I belong to you, you belong to me, you're my sweetheart" always made me think of the little bean I had growing in my belly (that's right kiddo you belong to me!).

I originally planned on creating a stencil with my Silhouette Cameo like Taryn did so I followed her instructions and created my eye chart using the Silhouette software.

BUT after I created my eye chart template I was quickly reminded how almost every Silhouette project I do leaves me alone and crying in the fetal position in a sea of wasted vinyl.

My vinyl slips, my blade won't cut, blah, blah, blah....

Now that I serve as Baby B's personal twenty-four hour dairy farm I don't have time to waste so I quickly decided on another technique I had read about in Pinterest land; use carbon paper!

You can find carbon paper (or also sometimes referred to as tracing paper) at any local craft store.

After printing out my eye chart (since my chart was longer than the average 8.5 x 11 paper I printed the top and bottom of my eye chart on two separate pages) I then taped it to my sign and followed the carbon paper's instructions and started tracing away.

After I finished tracing, I then went back and used a black paint pen to fill in all my letters.

The carbon paper technique is a really simple way to create signs BUT there's one problem; the black ink from the carbon paper smears all over your sign. I ended up having to sand my sign and act like I was aiming for that semi-distressed look. Shhhh.......isn't that what I told you guys was my plan all along??