Family Dates Sign

I made these for my mother and grandmother for mother's day. I originally saw something similar on Pinterest and since I use my craft time as time to do my own thing I don't do instructions for crafts all that often and didn't save it. However, they turned out really well and I'm pretty excited about them.

Things you will need

Wooden Circles(1-1/2 x 3/16 in)-enough for each person or event you plan to include

Wooden rectangles(1 3/8 x 1 3/4 x 3/16 in)(12)

Various colors of acrylic paint

Paint Brush

Sharpie Paint Pen

Large Wooden Sign

Thin wooden letters

Fabric

Mod Podge

Eyelet hooks

Round Jump Rings 12mm(can be found in jewelry sections of craft stores)

List of dates

Wood glue

Razor blade

Drill

I started by drilling 1/16th holes into the top and bottom of each circle and rectangle making sure they were directly opposite each other.

Once all the circles were drilled, I divided the circles into families and assigned each a color. I tried to use colors which complimented each other. I used deep colors for my mother's and pastel colors for my grandmother's. 

Once the paint on the circles dried, I used the Sharpie Paint Pen to write the name and the date on each circle. I used only the number of the date, because each circle will hang under its respected month and with the month and date the circle looks crowded.

After the paint of the names dried, I organized the circles into their respected months and then put them away for later.

The sign is where I feel you can be the most creative. For the sign shown, I painted it gray and used wooden letters to form Family. I painted the sides of each wooden letter too so it would blend in with the background. The letters were the most difficult part of the project. I found the easiest thing to do was to put Mod Podge down on the letter and cut out a square of fabric which would cover the entire letter.

After letting the Mod Podge dry for about twenty minutes, I used a razor blade to cut off the excess fabric. You have to be careful though, the razor blade is sharp enough to cut the wood as well. After cutting off the excess, I covered the fabric in another layer of Mod Podge to seal it. Finally, I arranged all the letters on the sign so they would fit and glued on each letter one at a time with wood glue. 

On the one I did for my grandmother, I Mod Podged Fabric onto the wood and painted the wooden letters instead. Both turned out really well.

After finishing the sign I started on the month squares. Originally I was going to just going to pick a color to paint all the months but decided to decorate each month based off what is known for and they turned out really well. 

January(snow), February(valentine's day), March(march madness), April(spring shower), May(may flowers), June(flip flops, sundress), July(flag), August(beach), Sept(changing leaves), October(Halloween), November(bare tree), December(christmas)

The final step is to put everything together. I spaced out the 12 eyelet hooks and attached each rectangle to an eyelet hook with a round jump ring and used the round jump rings to attach each of the circles in order by date. 

To hang your project there are a couple of options. You can simple add frame hooks to the back or I used ribbon for hanging. I started by putting two eyelet hooks on top of the sign and ran ribbon through the eyelet hooks on each side and tied the ribbon together making a bow at the top. I also added ribbon bows onto the eyelet hooks to hide them.