Eat

Ever since we moved into our house we've been looking for a retro sign or some thing food related to put in a space between two large windows in our kitchen. I keep a note in my purse with the exact size, so incase we come across something when we visit our favorite antique malls or thrift stores I can measure it to see if it would fit.

Last summer my husband and I were at a flea market (oh-the same one where I got the jar holder that is in my studio). We came across this great metal "eat" sign just like this one. After going back and fourth—getting it, not getting it. We decided that it was just too small for the space we wanted to put it, which looking back it was not even close to the size we needed, but I loved it so much I was going to settle.

By the end of the summer we still did not have something for that space, and I was growing tired of it being empty. I just wanted to get something up and settle for just anything that fit. I could not get that cool retro "eat" sign out of my head and was going to make it work one way or another. So I decided to make one that fit.

I took my measurements for that space to the local hardware store and bought a thin piece of wood. I then searched on-line for that metal sign and found it, downloaded the image and put my design skills to work. I brought the image into Adobe Illustrator and traced it so I'd have a clean readable template. I then used a enlarger (like this), to trace my "eat" onto the piece of wood. Then my wonderful husband took the jigsaw to it and cut it out. I painted it with a ultra gloss black paint (I wanted to to look like heavy metal), and let it dry, put hangers on the back...and now the space is no longer empty.