How We Make Our “Look What I Made” Signs
Hi! We’re Roman and Kate, the people behind The Homenko Studio.
We make our pieces in our small studio here in Calgary, Alberta, and most days it’s very much a family space too.
Our daughter loves stopping by to see what we’re working on — especially when there are new names involved. She loves reading them, sounding them out and asking us who each sign is for.
That’s one of the things we love about making personalized pieces. Every name is different, and every sign is going somewhere to become part of someone’s home.
So we thought we’d show you a little behind the scenes and share how our “Look What I Made” art display signs are made.
It all starts with wood
Every sign begins as a simple piece of wood.
We cut the boards to the size we need and sand them carefully, including the surface and edges, until everything feels nice and smooth.
Then comes the colour. Depending on the design, we use acrylic paint, wood stain, or a low-odour acrylic clear coat. We do this part by hand and then leave the boards to dry.
We love this stage because you can still see the natural character of the wood — no two boards are exactly the same.
While the boards are drying…
It’s time to work on the lettering.
We prepare the files in Bambu Studio and then print the letters on our 3D printer right here in the studio.
Once the letters are ready, we lay everything out on the board, check the placement and carefully attach each piece.
This is usually the moment when a simple wooden board suddenly starts looking like your sign.
Then come all the little details
Once the front is finished, we move to the back.
We add our little The Homenko Studio logo and strong hook-and-loop mounting strips. We’ve tested the mounting ourselves because, of course, we want the sign to actually stay where you put it!
Then we install the small hooks that will hold the strings for displaying your child’s artwork.
It’s a lot of little steps, but those are often the details we enjoy the most.
The wooden clips get their own little package
Next, we thread the wooden clothespins onto cotton cord.
Instead of shipping them already hanging from the sign, we put them into their own little bag. We learned that this is a much safer way for those tiny wooden clips to travel and helps protect them from breaking along the way.
When your sign arrives, there’s just one small thing left for you to do: tie the cotton cords onto the hooks.
And that’s it — it’s ready for drawings, paintings, school projects and all those little masterpieces that somehow keep multiplying. :)
One last check — and it’s ready to go
Before a sign leaves our studio, we check everything one more time, pack all the pieces carefully and prepare the order for its trip to you.
There’s quite a bit that happens behind the scenes: cutting, sanding, painting, 3D printing, assembling, checking and packing.
And we like it that way.
Because when something is going to hang in a child’s room and hold all those little pieces of their childhood, we think it deserves a little extra care.
Made one by one, by Roman & Kate, in our little Calgary studio.