How to Make Custom Neon Signs at Home

Before digging into the nitty-gritty of how to make custom neon signs, let’s look at a few reasons why you might like to craft your own:

• Personal: Sure, you could just buy neon lights online. But what if the stores you choose don’t have any designs that really resonate with you? Creating your own custom neon lights lets you create truly personal designs that mean something to you. You can even make them in the shape of your own artwork or logo.
• Affordable: Neon lights don’t come cheap. They tend to have pretty staggering price tags, especially for big or intricate designs. If you’re on a strict budget, learning how to make custom neon signs on your own might be the only option. It’s typically cheaper to do the work yourself than paying a company to do it all for you.
• Fun: If you’ve been looking for a genuinely fun and rewarding DIY project, building your own neon signs isn’t a bad one to pick. It allows you to flex your creative muscles and piece something beautiful together, bit by bit. In the end, you’ll have an awesome new decoration to enjoy after all your hard work.

There are two main methods you can use to make your own custom neon signs. And the one you choose will depend on what kind of design you’re creating: continuous or separate. Most of the time, people tend to pick cursive or continuous designs – made up of just one continuous line – as these are easier to put together.

First, your tools and supplies:

• Pencil and paper
• String
• Metal wire
• EL wire
• Glue gun
• Tape

Next, the instructions:

1. Think up a design for your light. It could be a word or phrase written in cursive, or a picture or symbol.
2. Use your pencil and paper to sketch out the design. It needs to be pretty accurate and to-scale, so don’t be afraid to redo it a few times until you’re totally satisfied.
3. Roll out some string and run it along the line of your design, from start to finish. Then, cut the end and measure how much string you’ve got. That’ll tell you precisely how much wire you need.
4. Cut the wire to the appropriate length and then bend and shape it to follow the form of your design – you might need to use pliers for this, or ask a friend to help out.
5. Attach your EL wire to the metal wire using your glue gun. Try to work carefully, section by section, to reduce the risk of mistakes.
6. Use colored tape to cover up any leftover parts of the wire. Then, simply hang up your sign and start enjoying it.

Designs with separated block letters or images are a little more complex. Since you have to have gaps between the various elements, you can’t just run one section of EL wire from start to finish like in the cursive method. Instead, you have to get a little creative and do things slightly differently.

Supplies you’ll need:

• A base (wood or plywood board, for instance)
• Printer
• Paper
• Blue and red pens
• String
• Drill
• EL wire
• Tape
• (Optional) Paint

Instructions:

1. Prepare your backing board and paint it to match your wall, or another color, if desired.
2. Get to work on your design – it’s best to make it using computer software, so you’ll be able to print everything off in the right size.
3. Print off the letters or shapes of your design and line them up in order.
4. Use your colored pens to mark out how you need to feed the wire along your board – use the blue pen to mark out the sections of visible wire in front of the board, and red to mark the parts that will hide behind the board.
5. Draw an X every time the wire passes through the board – the idea is to mark out your design in a way that shows most of it on the front of the board, but with small sections behind to secure it in place and join the letters/shapes together.
6. Punch holes at each X. Then, feed string through your entire design and use that to work out how much EL wire you need.
7. Tape your paper onto the base board and drill holes where the X marks were. Then, get rid of the paper. You should now have a board with a bunch of holes in it.
8. Thread your EL wire through the board, following the design you created. Tape any excess pieces, as well as the battery pack, to the back of the board.

If the process of making your own custom signs from scratch sounds a little too complicated, you might want an easier option. That’s where Neon Signs Now comes in. At Neon Signs Now, you get to design your own lights online and then relax while our expert team brings your idea to life.

• Custom Text: Neon Signs Now lets you enter any text you like and transform it into a fabulous neon sign. A name, a phrase, whatever you like – we can make it glow, with multiple fonts and colors to pick from.
• Pick Your Own Art: If text isn’t what you want, Neon Signs Now also lets you upload your own art or logo and turn it into neon lighting. It’s super simple, and there are lots of sizes, colors, and background styles to finalize your design.

If you feel like your home could benefit from some custom neon lights, head over to Neon Signs Now today and start creating something amazing.