DIY Harry Potter Three Broomsticks Wood Sign

Learn how to create this Three Broomsticks wood sign from Harry Potter using the pencil transfer method. A fun party decoration or unique sign to hang in your home. 

It’s that time of year again – time for some Harry Potter-themed crafting! This time I’m sharing a fun Three Broomsticks wooden sign. In this post I’m going to show you how I painted this sign using the pencil-transfer technique. An inexpensive and easy way to transfer an image to wood.

I created this sign for my friend’s Harry Potter-themed wedding. The reception was held at a beautiful library and they asked me to create this Three Broomsticks sign to hang above the bar area. This sign was a nice challenge and I am really happy with how it turned out.

For my friend’s themed wedding, I also created a huge directional sign and a smaller Honeydukes sign for the dessert table. Since their wedding venue was so interesting and beautiful on its own, they didn’t need very many decorations. These signs were the perfect nod to the Harry Potter theme and they fit in well with their other wedding elements like wands at our table, book page flowers and themed bowties.  

I love how this Three Broomsticks sign instantly gave the bar area of the reception a Harry Potter vibe. For the directional sign, I relied heavily on my Cricut Explore cutting machine to help cut the intricate lettering out of vinyl or to create stencils to use with paint. For this sign I took a completely different approach and created it using a pencil transfer technique.

The pencil transfer technique is wonderful because it doesn’t require any fancy equipment other than a printer. The imperfections that come with painting a sign by hand were perfect for this project. They added the rustic and worn feel I was going for. I added the couple’s names and their wedding date to the back of the sign and it made an excellent keepsake for the bride and groom. :)

Below is the tutorial. You can use this same process to create other signs as well – just switch up the image you are printing and follow the same steps.

DIY Three Broomsticks Sign

Supplies Needed:

• Wood sign – I used two 11″ x 28″ wooden pallet plaques from Michaels glued together to create a sign that measured 22″ x 28″. I did the same thing when I made my Shenanigans sign. You could, of course, assemble and stain your own wooden sign, but I find purchasing a wood sign from the craft store easier.
• Pencil
• White pencil if tracing onto a dark wooden sign
• Ruler
• Tape
• Acrylic paint and paint brushes in multiple sizes
• If your sign is large like mine, you will need a computer program that allows you to print one image in sections – I used Adobe Photoshop to print my sign. I’ve included instructions for Photoshop in the tutorial.
• Printer – I used my Epson EcoTank 3750 (I love this printer so much!)

Step by Step Tutorial

Step One: Create the image you are going to transfer.

The first step is printing a Three Broomsticks image. Search online for an image and size it to fit the dimension of the wooden sign you are using. I made my image 22″ x 28″ wide. 

Since the image I needed to print was much larger than my printer could handle, I needed to print it in sections. For me, that meant unchecking several boxes when it came time to print, like “scale to fit media” and “center image”. Once those boxes were unchecked, I set the scale to 100% and then moved the image around in the preview window to print each part of my large image. It took about 9 sheets of paper to print the entire image at full scale. 

After printing the first page, I moved the image slightly to the left and printed the next one. Repeat this process until you have printed every part of the image.

Once the images are printed, tape them together. There will be pages that overlap others and you will need to line up and match the design. I like to trim the borders off of the pages that will overlap on top of others. 

Step Two: Transfer the image onto the wooden board.

Color over the back of the image with white pencil. I used a white pencil because my wooden sign was a dark brown. If your wooden sign is white or light colored, you can use a regular pencil. When coloring the back of my image, I could see the design through the paper so I concentrated my white pencil to those areas and made sure everything was covered. There is no need to cover areas of the paper that you will not be tracing.

My white pencil was almost completely gone when I was all finished!

Next, position the image on the wooden boards. I purchased two wooden boards from Michaels and glued them together using Elmer’s wood glue. Tape the image into place so it won’t shift as you trace it.

Trace over the image with a regular pencil pressing hard enough to transfer the white pencil to the board, but not too hard that you indent the board. Lift up a corner to make sure you are pressing a good amount and the image is being transferred. Then continue tracing the entire design.

Below you can see my wooden sign once the complete image had been transferred.

Step Three: Paint the sign following your transfer.

The fun part! Time to paint the sign following the traced markings. I used an off-white paint so the words weren’t too bright. Work from the top down and take your time. Use a small brush for the small parts and don’t worry if there are imperfections. From far away you won’t be able to see them and up close they add to the worn and rustic look of the sign.

Painting curves over the gaps in the wooden boards was a bit tricky. I decided not to try to fill in the gaps with paint but to just keep the paint on the surface.

Below you can see my sign after I finished painting everything.

The sign turned out really well and was perfect to place over the bar area at my friends’ wedding! I love using the pencil-transfer method on signs. I’ve blogged about the technique before when I created my Watermelon Summer Sign and my Shenanigans sign.

I’ll be back next week with another DIY Harry Potter craft to share with you! In the meantime, check out my fun Harry Potter Crafts Page for more fun ideas :)