Family 'Established' Sign

For our first anniversary I was trying to come up with the greatest gift for the husband.  I thought and thought and I just couldn't seem to come up with anything that was personal and something he might actually want. 

 A couple of my friends have these great signs hanging in their houses that they received as gifts.  It's their last name and the year they were married - PERFECT!  That was what I want to buy. (ugh, now I look back on it and think "why the heck did I spend so much money on that?!)  

Anyway, here is the one I ended up getting for him (which, I obviously ordered late and therefore it didn't arrive until our anniversary was WAY OVER)

For the holidays my sisters, our spouses and I all decided to exchange handmade gifts!  Very fun and affordable.  So, I decided I would give a handmade EST. sign a shot.  I got a 6' x 5" x 1" (I have no idea if this is the right way to say it was 6 feet long, 5 inches wide and 1 inch thick, but I hope so) piece of wood and had the guy at Home Depot cut it into three 2' pieces for me. 

I sanded down the edges so they were a bit rounded and painted it with an ivory craft paint.

Using some old scrap-booking chipboard letters I traced out what I wanted the sign to say.  This sign is for my brother and sister in law - their last name, like mine, is LONG, hence the SQUISHY nature of the end result  

Don't worry, you can actually erase any pencil that you can still see after the letters are painted.

After all of my TRACING I ended up with this:

I chose a Caribbean Blue because my sis and bro's house is Purple and Turquoise on the outside.  Not their choice, but how they purchased the house.  It's very popular in Colorado, where they live, that the houses are BRIGHT!  

Finish it up with some poly and you are done!  

Totally not as BEAUTIFUL as the one I purchased but it's made with LOVE and I hope they really like it!  

~ CHEERS ~

Ashley