Styrofoam 3-Dimensional Spring Sign

I am really excited to share with you how I made this 3-dimensional stryrofoam Spring Sign.  I had never really worked with Styrofoam before and I am really happy with how it turned out.  I didn’t realize you could do so many fun things with it.  Here is how I made it.  First I found a frame that measured 24 inches by 8 inches.  I really liked the shape of the frame and thought it was perfect for what I was going to use it for.

I took a rectangular piece of Styrofoam that originally measured 36 inches in length and cut it down to 24 x 8 inches so that it fit perfectly into the frame.  I simply cut it with a box cutter that had a new razor blade in it.  It worked like a charm.

Then on my computer program I measured out the word Spring so that it measured 22 inches by 6 inches.  I wanted to have an inch around the entire word.  Then I printed it out onto two separate sheets of paper to contain the whole word.  Then as you can see below, I taped the word together and centered it in the frame.  The Styrofoam is under the word and set into the frame.

Then taking the box cutter, I cut out each letter. *DO NOT CUT THROUGH THE ENTIRE STYROFOAM!!  I only cut down into the middle of the Styrofoam.  Then I took a Sharpie marker and traced around the letters so I would know exactly where the letters were when I removed the stencil.

Then I took a sharp kitchen knife and sliced sideways into the Styrofoam.  I cut away all of the excess Styrofoam but made sure to leave half of the bottom layer.  Does that make sense.  When I was close to the letter, I used the box cutter to make more precise cuts so that I did not cut away any of the letter.  I put x’s on the insides of the letters where I needed to cut away material so I wouldn’t accidently make a mistake.  I found that if I used a vegetable peeler, the tip of it was a perfect tool for scooping away material in the tight small areas!

When all the excess Styrofoam was removed, I took this Magikote from DecoArt and painted the tops and sides of the letters.  This will make the surface hard and will allow you to lightly sand and paint your styrofoam.  Isn’t that pretty cool?  It soaks up quickly though so make sure you have enough to cover what you are making.  I ended up having to do two coats and ended up having a little less than half of the Magikote left-over.

Let the Magikote dry overnight.  This is very important!!  When it has dried completely, you can paint it with paint.  There are some paints that will melt your Styrofoam so be sure to test it on a small piece of scrap Styrofoam to make sure you aren’t going to ruin all your hard work.

I painted mine white with this Americana acrylic paint by Decoart.

Then after the white paint had dried completely, I took some moss and covered all the areas other than the letters.

I used 1 and 1/4 packages of the moss to cover the entire sign.  I glued the moss on with my glue gun and just pieced it together like a puzzle.  Pretty easy really!

But really, really messy.  This WHOLE project was actually really messy!

But I am really happy with how “springy” this project turned out.  Nothing says spring to me like bringing greenery inside after a long dreary winter!

What do you think?