What took you so long!?

For the past almost four years since we moved into this house, I have had this sign:

Taped up over our doorbell on the front porch.

Well, actually, this is probably the third or fourth version of the sign. The others were either torn or the tape got unsticky so I had to remake the sign a few times.

But still. You get the point.

Yes, the doorbell chimes just feet from our nursery where once toddler Finny, then baby Goose and now baby Girly Pie have slept. And yes, when it has been rung during nap times, they all inevitably woke up in a horrendous mood. So yes, the sign was necessary.

But seriously. Could you get more tacky than that? Notice the cracked masking tape that held it up? See the faded lettering that you have to strain to make out? Punky pointed out to me yesterday, as he tore the thing down, that I must have had it up backwards. The ink was actually darker on the backside than on the front.

At first it was just temporary. I took it down in between naps. But as you can imagine, I would forget to put it up some days, and those were of course the days that the UPS gal would come and ring the bell smack in the middle of a much needed nap. So I just started leaving my temporary sign up all the time.

I lived in denial, thinking it wouldn’t be needed that long.

But as the weeks turned into months, and then years… well, I finally admitted that it was to be a permanent fixture to our front porch.

So for the past couple of years I’ve been meaning to make a pretty little sign to replace the tacky taped paper one. But really, I never walk up to my door and knock or ring the bell. I always enter through the garage. Out of sight, out of mind, after all.

But, after years of excuses, better things to do, forgotten ugly signs, teasing remarks from my dad who would never have stood for such a tasteless little (not so) welcome sign on his own front porch…

I am proud to announce that today it took me all of an hour (maybe less... though broken up for drying time between the paint and the varnish coat…) to do up this cute little sign:


I guess all it took was the guilt of seeing my son pull my handy little sign off the porch helpfully, seeing it as nothing more than a piece of trash on the wall.

So this afternoon while Girly Pie napped and the boys played out back, I whipped out my acrylic paints and a little wooden plate I’d intended for a name sign on Girly Pie’s door (never got around to that either…) and set down to work. Then when Hubby got home he was kind enough to drill out two small holes in the circle areas I’d painted for just such a purpose. He was also sweet enough to drill a little hook into the siding above the doorbell so I could hang the thing up. Then I stuck some yarn through the holes, tied a knot in the back, and VOILA!!! A cute, happy little sign on the front porch.

Let’s just hope it still gets the point across to Mrs. UPS. ;o)