How to Create a Felt and Wood Sign Tutorial

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Read on to find out how to create a felt and wood sign using your Cricut maker and don’t forget to check out the end of my post for more amazing projects you can create with a Cricut and some felt!
I told you I’d be back to show you how I used this cute “I love us” image I created and then cut with my Cricut Maker (check out my post on using Cricut Design Space offline here).
We’re gearing up for Valentine’s Day here at my house and while I’d love to go all out for every holiday Valentine’s Day is one I just don’t have a lot of decor for and one of the harder ones for me to find something I love to mix in with the decor I do have.  Does anyone else have that problem?  Part of me loves the pinks and cutesy stuff but most of me loves the idea of red and white and black Valentine decor and I just don’t think my children would be very excited about that.
I’m excited to be part of the Create with Cricut Challenge 2018.  Each month a group of us crafty bloggers will be given a surprise element to use in a post using our Cricut machine and sharing the projects others created too.  This month the surprise *ingredient* (if you will) was felt.  I’ve fallen slightly in love with felt over the past 6 months so I was excited to create a project for my home using it.
I knew pretty quickly what I wanted to say with my felt.  I hopped on my phone and used one of my favorite apps to create the image (WordSwag, if you don’t have it you really should!) and then spent a couple days stumped, I wasn’t so sure where I wanted to use it.  I was toying with a pillow for my bed but I feel like I’ve made a lot of pillows this past year and one more might just be the end of my marriage (I promise I’m mostly joking…the extra 10ish that showed up this last Christmas season was a real test of Nate’s love for me though).  I also considered a fabric banner/pennant, like really considered it.  That was my actual plan until I walked into Joann for something completely different and saw this wooden sign.  For whatever reason I knew right away this was what I wanted to put the felt on.  I liked the idea of the red against the wood and I loved that with the way the sign was build I could either hang it or set it on a shelf/mantle/dresser etc.  All the sudden my options became endless and I couldn’t wait to get the sign home and finish my sign!
Let’s jump right in so you can make your own shall we?
I’m going to tell you step by step how to create a felt and wood sign.  You can use my image or you can use the steps I’ll show you to have your sign say anything you want!
Step 1.  Decide on your image/word/phrase.
Now you can do what I did (design your phrase first) and then find a sign that fits what you cut out or you can find the sign you want to use and then create your phrase to fit the sign (in case you’re wondering the 2nd option makes most sense).  As I said above I used the WordSwag app (I know it’s in the apple store, not sure about Android devices), it’s a fun one to play with and gives you a lot of different options for how a word or phrase could look without having to retype it out and move things around over and over again.  I love how easy it is to save different versions of the project without starting back at square one after saving.  You can also use an image you found online, in Design Space, or created somewhere else.  You can find my I love us image here to download and then upload into Design Space.
Step 2. Gather your supplies.
To make your project just like mine you’re going to need the following:
Cricut Maker
12×12 Fabric Grip Mat
Weeding Tool
Red Felt
(I used a very soft felt which made the rotary blade of the maker a necessity {remember I was considering using this for a pillow for a minute or two}.  If you used a stiffer felt or used a backer with your felt you could use the fine point blade in one of the Explore machines too).
Spray Adhesive
(I used 3M Super 77 Multipurpose Adhesive)
Wood Sign
Mine measures right about 10″x 10″ and is from Joann, regular price is 10.99 it was on sale for about $8.
Something to protect your surface area when using the spray adhesive
(I used a piece of newspaper, just something to block the over spray)
Step 3. Cut out your design.
Using the Cricut Maker with the rotary blade made this the easiest part of the project (and it’s an easy project since we’re not making the sign itself).  I placed my felt on my 12×12 fabric mat and made sure it was well attached everywhere just by patting it down with my hand.  Then I loaded my design onto the canvas in Design Space and sent it to the Maker to cut.  There are a few varieties of felt to pick between.  Depending on what type of felt you purchased (thick/thin, soft/stiff) you’ll select your material.  Because I hadn’t cut felt before I decided to play it safe and added more pressure from the cut screen and it worked because my felt cut like a dream!  Is there anything more satisfying than pulling off the excess fabric and seeing a perfectly clean cut?  I’m not sure there is in the crafting world!
Look how great that cut!  I love how well the fabric grip mat holds the felt in place, I am sure that ads to how clean the cuts look with the rotary blade!
Step 4.  Remove design from mat.
It might seem silly to give this part of the project it’s own step but if you’re (like me) working with a softer felt this is an important step that you should not rush or you will end up with a stretched out blob of something resembling your image.  I thought I had a genius idea for keeping the letters exactly how they were on the mat.  I knew the transfer tape would be too sticky to the felt and since I needed to spray adhesive to the back of the letters I needed them to not end up more stuck to the transfer tape so I decided to try some painter’s tape.  If I had been using a stiffer felt this would have probably been the perfect idea.  It was not for this project.  I would bet (based on my experience) that the very best way to do this step is to slowly using either a pair of the wide Cricut tweezers or by using one of the Cricut spatulas to slowly lift a little at a time.  The U and the S and even the i would have been just fine but I was really worried about the thin lines from the o to the v and even the l to the o getting stretched out and distorted.
Step 5.  Attach design to sign.
After I had my design removed from my mat I laid it on my sign exactly how I wanted it to look then folded small pieces back at a time and sprayed a light coat of spray adhesive to the felt and quickly laid it back in place sticking it to the sign.  I used a piece of newspaper between where I was spraying and everything else making sure to not push the felt firmly against the paper so the spray adhesive didn’t stick the felt to the paper.  I started with the dot to the I because that was a simple piece then did the line to the I.  Next I did the top of the S followed by the bottom of the S.  Doing the I and the S first helped me keep the rest of the letters/words where they were suppose to be.  Don’t be in a big rush and this part is really like a 2 minute process.  I really liked that there was next to no dry time at all with the spray adhesive so once I had everything in place my project was done!
Step 6.  Step back and enjoy your project!
That wasn’t so hard right?!  Don’t you love the red with the wood?  Right now I have my sign hanging on my door and while the sentiment is completely true for my fun family I really think I want to figure out how to style it in my bedroom.  I’ve still got my cute red/white felt ball garland hanging on my bed from Christmas, I think I can easily transition it to Valentine’s day right?!
I hope you’ll follow along each month as we all put our own spin on a specific crafting supply!!
Be sure to check out these other amazing felt projects that were all created with a Cricut machine!
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Now tell me, if you were to make your own felt and wood sign what would it say?  Would it be holiday specific or something you left up year round?  Leave a comment below and tell us what yours would say!
While Cricut has supplied us with a machine this post is not sponsored by Cricut, we just love the machine and try to use it every chance we have!  This post does contain affiliate links, thanks for supporting our page!