Hello again!
Fall is now upon us! Everyone knows it is the season for staying inside to craft and not feeling guilty about never seeing daylight. Right? Maybe that’s just me…Fall is definitely the season for Halloween decor, and today I’m going to share with you my DIY “Beware of Zombies” Yard Sign!
Zombies just happen to be the favorite horror movie genre in our household. (One of the first dates my husband and I had been a couch viewing of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake.) So it was an easy choice for us to zombify our yard for Halloween.
We wanted to decorate on the cheap, so I used materials we already had. We’ve tackled many a home renovation project in the past few years, and thanks to a hefty deck re-do, we had an unsightly pile of old wood sitting in the back yard. I have to say that this pile has been a gold mine for crafting. Why distress your own wood for weathered projects when mother nature can do it for you on a decades old deck?
For this project I picked out a few boards that looked good and grungy. Then, I screwed three boards together with supports on the back in a creepy crooked manner and set off to design my sign.
Instead of the popular biohazard or zombie crossing signs, I decided to go with something more guttural. Real-ish. Like, maybe you shouldn’t trick or treat at my house because I threw this sign together in a hurry and warned you with blood.
So the next step was to seek out a frightening font. I went to Dafont.com and found a few to download that worked perfectly. I used DK Ishtar for “Beware of” to look handwritten in a hurry, and Bates Shower for “Zombies” to look finger painted and drippy with blood. I installed them on my computer and designed and sized the words in my Silhouette software.
I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the letters out of copy paper. Initially, I did this as a mock-up to see if the letters were sized correctly, but I soon realized my machine had already done the work for me. I added scotch tape to the back of each letter to keep them in place. The next step was spray painting!
Instead of painstakingly tracing each letter, I very lightly sprayed over each letter with an espresso dark brown spray paint to give the illusion of soot or dirt. I was careful to do this sparsely, to allow the old wood to show through. This added to the creep factor, and when I removed the paper, each letter was outlined for me to paint in with a brush. I chose white acrylic paint for “Beware of” to make it more visible at night, and mixed an appropriate acrylic blood-red for “Zombies.” I added a black paint shadow behind each of the letters to make them stand out.
The finishing touches? Splattering red paint (blood) across the sign and attaching a crooked stake to the back!
Our DIY “Beware of Zombies” yard sign in only the beginning. I hope to add more zombie projects to our yard each and every year. With a few well placed pumpkins and a bag of bones, you too can have a Halloween yard sign worthy of scaring small children!
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed my Halloween DIY tutorial. If you can’t get enough Halloween decorations, be sure to follow me on Pinterest and check out my Everything Fall board for tons of great fall ideas!
I love this! I love the sign, and I love the setup with the skeleton. It’s awesome! I don’t currently have a yard (condo), but when I do I am totally setting this up! I love Halloween and I am a zombie fanatic! 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, yep saw that one (and the original). 😉 I am not this crafty (I am better with food), but it’s definitely worth giving it a whorl. Thanks for sharing!
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Thanks so much Sarah! I’m hoping to expand my zombie infestation this year. Possibly a zombie in a planter DIY… which may work well for a patio- so check back soon!