We have not had house numbers on our house for over six years. Yes, you read that right — six years! We removed the old numbers when we painted our house and simply never got around to putting them back up, but I’ve decided it is time for some DIY house numbers to spiffy our house up a bit.
Why haven’t we ever put the numbers back up?
I suppose if we lived in a large town or big neighborhood we may have been forced to put them back up, but we live in a tiny little town of about 600 people, and honestly, everyone knows where we live. The mail-person already knows us, the delivery drivers have questioned it once or twice but then always remember after that, and we’ve never had an issue.
So why are we bothering now?
A couple of reasons. We made some improvements to our house and will probably be repainting it a different color again soon (we need the curtains to match the drapes so to speak), and we may be considering selling our house soon which will probably require house numbers and everything else to be in good condition.
I’ve looked into custom numbering kits at some local home improvement stores, but ouch – the price! My husband and I did some digging around after that and we found that we could get a 12 x 6 sheet of stainless steel (custom cut to that size) with holes pre-punched for only $2 at a local Amish metal fabricator.
TIP ==> I’d check your area for any local metal fabricators, even if not Amish, as I’m sure you can get a pretty darn good deal on custom cut metal.
Making DIY House Numbers
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Now that I have my metal sheet, the fun begins! I decided to make a fun design to go around my numbers, while keeping the house numbers the focus of what I’m trying to let everyone see, of course. The design is really nothing fancy, I just looked in Design Space until I found a few things that I liked and arranged them until I thought they were cute.
I ended up with a dragonfly, a floral pattern similar to the one below, and a little corner design. If you’d like my exact design in full, you can find it here.
Materials Needed
For this project you can choose your favorite material base; metal, wood, etc., however, you will still follow the same instructions for creating the design and using vinyl as both a stencil and as part of the design.
- 12 x 6 sheet of stainless steel (you can make it bigger but I wouldn’t go much smaller).
- Paint + Primer all-in-one in your favorite colors.
- Cricut Explore Air
- Cricut vinyl to use as a stencil (any color).
- Cricut vinyl to place on your project (choose a color for your design).
- Cricut adhesive foil for the house numbers.
- Cricut tool set
- Optional – husband to hold up house numbers in the rain for demo purposes. 🙂
Instructions
Create Your Design
Step one is simply to create your design. If you like the design I made you can use mine as a template and simply substitute your own house numbers in Design Space. You can find my pre-made design HERE. It is all one color so that it cuts all at the same time, but feel free to play around with colors as you are developing your design.
If you prefer to start from scratch, head over to Design Space and play around with different patterns and text until you find what you like. The key here is to know exactly how big your base material is and make a rectangle that exact size so when you cut out our stencil it fits perfectly on your base. You will place all of your numbers and any designs you pick within that rectangle.
I made the mistake of making mine slightly too small and had to cover the edges of my material with tape so paint didn’t get on my metal. It worked out okay, but took more time and effort.
TIP ==> To see how to use all the features in Design Space, like editing text, adjusting images, hiding layers, etc., head over to my Cricut Category and browse lots of useful tutorials there.
*Learn how to cut, weed, and transfer vinyl in my personalized beverage coaster tutorial.
*Learn how to use Design Space features like ungrouping, welding, and cutting vinyl in my Vinyl Letter Wedding Tile tutorial.
*Learn how to ungroup and slice in my Teacher Appreciation Gift tutorial.
*See another project working with Cricut Foil in my DIY Stocking Holder tutorial.
*And if you are simply a beginner and need an easier project to start with, try my very simple Getting Started With A Cricut project to get some practice under your belt, then come back and tackle this one!
Cut Your Design
Once you’ve finalized your design it is time to cut. Click “Make It” in Design Space and follow the instructions for cutting the material. Be sure to adjust the dial on your Cricut Explore Air to the proper setting for each material.
I cut the full design with my rectangle in tact out of one color vinyl.
Then I hid the individual pieces that I didn’t need so that I could cut out an overlay of the dragonfly in another color and the house numbers in the Cricut Foil.
After cutting your design, be sure to weed out the interior of the design since you will be using your vinyl as a stencil (the blue vinyl pictured here). If you weed the outer part as you usually do when making things, you may have to start again. The dragonfly and house numbers you will weed as normal by removing the outer piece.
After weeding, place your stencil firmly on your base material and be sure there are no air bubbles around any of the edges.
You can see on this piece where I made the mistake mentioned above. My stencil doesn’t quite go all the way to the edge of my stainless steel and this required me to tape the edges to avoid paint getting on the metal.
Paint Your Material
Technically you could do this entire design out of vinyl and skip the painting step, but I wanted multiple materials and dimensions on my project to make it stand out a bit more. If you will be painting yours, be sure to do so outside in a well ventilated area.
Since I am using three colors in my design, I needed to cover each area that wasn’t being painted. You can simply tape some cardboard over the top of any areas that you don’t want to get paint on, then apply your spray paint in quick strokes. I did three coats. Be sure to let the paint dry completely between each coat.
If you were not doing multiple colors, my suggestion would be to remove the stencil when the paint is still wet, however, I had to let dry between each color and each coat so I waited until the paint was completely dry to remove the stencil. The paint stayed adhered to the metal pretty well and there was no bleeding of paint under the stencil.
Apply Vinyl Design
The last thing to do is to apply your vinyl overlays on top of the paint as necessary. I waited a full day to apply the vinyl just to make sure the paint had time to properly dry and cure. Simply use some Cricut transfer tape and carefully place your design where you’d like it.
As you can see, I used a pink vinyl on top of the purple paint for the dragonfly, and I used both the blue vinyl and gold foil vinyl over the black paint for the house numbers. I think it gives it a bit more dimension and character, what do you think?
I think our DIY House Numbers turned out great, and although it is a rainy day today I had my husband hold them up so I could see how they’d look from the street. I think pretty darn good, what do you think? p.s. our new house color will be a maroon color, which I think will look amazing with these house numbers!
BONUS: Easy Projects for Getting Started With A Cricut
Cardstock
One of the easiest things to use is cardstock. Grab your favorite designs and get cutting with these simple ideas. Any of the designs linked below are just some of the example projects, to search for an easy project for yourself, simply head over to Design Space and see what is available!
Cards
I love making my own cards. Adding a personal touch just makes it mean that much more for the recipient, and with a bit of cardstock, your Cricut, and some of the pre-made designs in Design Space, you can have your own custom cards simply and easily!
This Thanksgiving Card is super easy to make, and the pattern is already made for you so you simply need to follow the instructions right in Design Space and cut!
Invitations
Give your invites a personal touch by designing them yourself! With the Cricut Explore Air you can not only cut out the design, but you can write on the invitations in your preferred font right from the machine as well! This easy Teepee Design birthday invitation comes with simple to follow instructions right in Design Space.
Coloring Pages
Want to make your own fun coloring pages? It is so easy with the Cricut pens and Explore Air!
Iron On
Start with something simple, like these one color flourishes that take bland winter gloves and turns them into a fashion accessory! After you’ve mastered these, move on to more colors and layers.
Party Games, Decor, and More!
Want your wedding and/or party to stand out? Try making some fun games and decor with the easy to follow instructions in Design Space. This Hopeless Romantic Tic Tac Toe game is really easy to make and so much fun to play at a party!
These are just a few ideas to help get you started, but there is so much more to be made. You can see a full list of fun ready to make projects right in Design Space or start designing your own project. The possibilities are endless!
This DIY house numbers project is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.
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