No Solicitors, Please!

I used to think door-to-door vacuum salesmen were a myth.  In this day and age who would go into the homes of strangers to demonstrate an over-priced vacuum?  To my surprise (and dismay) they actually exist and ring my doorbell on a regular basis.  So do teenagers wanting to sell me magazine subscriptions to earn a free vacation.

I don't have time to read the magazines I already subscribe to.  I love my cheap, store-bought vacuum.  I'm not looking for a new church, lawn mowing service, or newspaper subscription.

Unless you are a child who lives on my street selling cookie dough don't bother knocking on my door.  Solicitors, if you ring my doorbell during nap time you can expect to be greeted by an angry mom.  This is your warning.

I've been wanting to make a sign to hang by the front door for a while now.  Then, last week, Facebook was full of warnings of a woman in town pretending to be a door-to-door book salesman looking for children to kidnap.  I don't know how that story originated or if there is any truth to the warnings, but none the less it prompted me to finally make a sign.

I started with a board from the scrap pile in the garage.  I used a pencil and letter stencils to write out my message.  I liked the spacing and look of it all so I traced my pencil lines with permanent marker.  I knew if I painted over the pencil lines I'd never get the spacing right again!

I planned to paint the board with white craft paint.  Craft paint is thin enough the marker would still show through.  Unfortunately, my white craft paint was MIA.  And I had a sleeping child that I wasn't about to wake to run to the store.  Such is life.  Not wanting to put off this project any longer I found some white spray paint in the garage and went to work.  I figured my perfectly spaced letters would be covered forever, but I really just wanted to get. it. done.  

In my haste I didn't factor in the weather.  It was at least 100 degrees out.  The spray paint was drying before it even hit the wood!  It was all bumpy and resembled a popcorn ceiling.  I ended up sanding all the crumbly paint off and was left with this.

I painted the message and edges with the same royal plum paint I used on the shutters.  Some twine stapled to the back finished it off.  

The sign was hanging on the porch for maybe 24 hours when, right in the middle of nap time, the doorbell rang.  My first thought was, come on people, read the sign!!  Turns out it was my neighbor with free movie rental coupons for the kids.  haha  I guess since she falls into the "welcome friends" category I'll forgive her for waking my son. ;)  By the way, she loved my sign.  I guess she isn't in the market for a new vacuum either.