Seahorse Sign (Made From Wood Shims)

We moved into our house a little over three years ago and we still have rooms with builder white walls and no decor.  We’re slowly getting there, but it’s definitely a process to decorate a house.  Next on the list is tackling the kids bathroom.  I purchased this shower curtain from The Land Of Nod a few months ago, but haven’t done much else with the room.  I came up with the idea to use inexpensive wood shims to create a distressed wooden sign, and paint a seahorse silhouette on it.  It’s a super easy project, and you can choose any silhouette or stencil to create your own custom design.

I picked up a pack of wood shims from Home Depot (only 4 bucks for a pack of 48!) to create the sign.  The rest of the supplies I already had at home, making this a really inexpensive project.

If you’re not familiar with wood shims, they’re shaped like a wedge, with one end a bit thicker than the other end.  To start, take two shims and lay one on top of the other, skinny end to thick end, and glue them together (I used E6000).

This creates a board that is even all the way across.  Make two of these, and they will create the base for your sign.  These double shims will run horizontally on the back of your sign.  Once you glue your painted shims onto them the back of your sign will look like this:

Some of the shims in my pack were a little rough and broken on the skinny end which I liked, so I mixed some broken ones in with some that were whole.  Paint the shims that will form the front of your sign (or leave them natural if you prefer).  I used acrylic craft paint, and thinned it out with a bit of water.  Once dry, glue them to your base shims.  I glued all my shims going in the same direction, with the thicker end at the top and the skinny end on the bottom.  Let the glue dry completely.

I chose a seahorse silhouette for my sign.  To make the silhouette, I found a clipart picture of a seahorse online, then used it as a guide to freehand the silhouette onto a 12×12 piece of paper.

I cut out the seahorse, leaving the outer edge of the paper intact to create my stencil.  I used painters tape to tape the seahorse stencil to the wood, then used a foam brush to dab paint all over the seahorse stencil.  Be careful around the edges of the paper so it doesn’t move around too much.

Let the paint dry thoroughly then tack picture hanging hardware into the back of your sign and you’re done!

Have you used wood shims for a crafty project?  Since I purchased a pack of 48, I’ve got quite a few leftover and would love to hear any ideas you have for what I could do with them!

~ Amy

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