How to Make a Neon Sign for Your Wedding

DIY Custom Neon Light Sign Tutorial

Did you know that you could create your own neon light sign?

You can even personalize with a quote, your name, or even turn it into LED rope light wall art.

 There are several tutorials that show you how to make a fluorescent sign out of EL wire, but in this step-by-step guide, you will learn how to make your sign out of neon flex, which gives it a brighter, much more professional result.

Plus, you could even get color-changing flex that works with a remote. The video tutorial for the neon sign I made is at the end of this post.

P.S.

Huge shoutout to Elly Haze Photography for my wedding photos and Ila Vivian Vintage Rentals for all of my vintage decor.

If you are having an event in the Memphis area I can’t recommend them enough!

I made a custom neon sign for my wedding.

As most of y’all who follow me on Instagram know, I DIYed almost every piece of my wedding décor and created everything on a tight budget. From the bouquets, centerpieces, signs, hair and makeup, food, EVERYTHING.

I made it all.

(I plan on creating tutorials for everything as soon as I get finished DIYing the house we just bought. Stay tuned. Or catch me on stories if you wanna catch some live action.)

Anyway, I really realllly wanted a custom neon sign for my wedding, but they are esspensivve.

I even tried to justify the cost by convincing myself that the neon light could go over our bed after the wedding and live on till death do us part.

Or we could use it as a photo backdrop at the reception, or even at the altar, maybe… It would look so cute behind our sweetheart table…

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Inspiration for my vintage modern wedding decor

I have had a particular affinity for Bruce Nauman ever since I took High Modern Art in college, which probably fueled my subconscious desire to create a work of art from fluorescent LED lights.

So naturally, I decided to make my own neon sign, and I wanted to be sure that it looked professional enough that our wedding guests would think I had it custom made.

No bootleg stuff.

But did it work??

I succeeded. I had countless people asking me where I ordered my sign from. A couple of them even asked if they could pay me to make them one. I don’t have time for all that right now, but I will tell you how I did it.

I will warn you that I had to troubleshoot this entire project myself because there were no step-by-step neon sign tutorials that I found that used the neon flex that the pros use.

I’ll give you some tips and let you see my process, but you may figure out a way that might work better for you.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. However, I would not recommend anything I wouldn’t use myself. Read disclaimer here.

What can you make a neon sign out of?

Click the links below to see the products I used:

Neon Flex 21.99

Wire (2 colors) 14.39

Wire strippers 11.99

Soldiering Kit 15.99

Box Cutter 5.99

Glue 6.48

Silicone 7.43

Clear Acrylic 34.00 (optional, read below

Clear Drop Cloth 2.38 (optional, read below)

Chip Clip 5.99 (you probably need these anyway)

Shop the Post

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Things to consider before you start creating your LED sign…

Safety First-

Wear eye protection and be sure you are soldering in a well-ventilated area so that you don’t get lead poisoning. Make this at your own risk.

If you need to save a buck-

I first opted for the cheapskate way, which consisted of using a $2.38 clear drop cloth as the backing for my neon light. My plan was to cut so closely around the letters after I was finished that the drop cloth would almost be invisible.

This will work fine if you trace your letters using the lightest Sharpie known to mankind.

The drop cloth stretches and shifts a little, so my navy-blue Sharpie stuck out like a sore thumb. I found the acrylic was much easier to work with, it just sucked having to drill all the holes at the end of each letter. With the drop cloth, you can easily poke a hole through without drilling. Also, the glue adheres to the drop cloth easier. The acrylic was only $34 though, so it’s really up to you.

I’ve also came up on some clear sneeze guards people are giving away. If you can find one, that would be free.

Silicone vs glue-

Glue works great if you are using the drop cloth, but on the acrylic, it makes a huge (permanent) mess if you make a mistake.

I had several of these which you can see on the word, “Whitsett.” You couldn’t see it at all with the light on though.

Silicone takes some finesse, but you can literally peel off the excess around the letters when it’s dry. That’s why you can’t see it at all on the word, “The.”

Soldering-

Yes, you have to learn how to solder wires together. No, it’s not difficult AT ALL once you get the hang of it.

I taught my 12-year-old daughter how to solder while I was making this sign, and she caught on pretty quickly.

There are a bunch of neon sign tutorials out there using EL wire (which you don’t have to solder) but that Neon Flex just hits different.

For a professional-looking neon sign, you have to solder. There’s no way around it.

I will briefly touch on how to do it in this article, but this video teaches you everything you need to know:

Soldering Crash Course

You got this.

Here’s how to make it…

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Instructions for your fluorescent name sign:

I am assuming that you are making a light sign with letters, but if you are making a light sign for your bar that has, let’s say, a Natty Light design- these instructions should work in pretty much the same way. The same goes for a business logo, or any shape really.

1. Decide on what word or picture you want for your sign and either cut it out using a Cricut or freehand it.

I started to use my Cricut, but since it’s packed up with my classroom stuff, I just drew, “The Whitsetts” in the exact size I wanted.

Here’s the secret for PERFECT hand lettering:

Test the layout and fonts on Canva! This is a major hack that I use to design with different fonts.

I used the Brittany font and referenced my Canva design as I drew out the letters.

2. Place your acrylic or (clear drop cloth) over the paper you put your design on.

If you are using any backing that is flexible- it will be easiest to go ahead and re-trace the design onto it using a light-colored Sharpie.

If you are working with a hard acrylic-you can skip that- unless you just want to be on the safe side.

3. Measure and cut neon flex to size.

Place the neon flex on top of your design working from left to right.

You can ONLY cut your light rope on the black lines, so some parts of your letters will be either longer or shorter than how you envisioned them.

Just line up one section of a letter at a time and cut on the black line. If your word is in cursive, this could mean several letters are made out of a singular piece of neon flex.

    Here are pictures of how I measured, cut, and lined up, “The.”

After that, use your box cutter to slice into the rubber part of the neon flex strip so that the copper pads are exposed.

4. Cut and strip your wires.

For one end of each piece of neon light you cut, you need to attach two wires: a positive and a negative. DO NOT GET THESE MIXED UP.

Inside the neon flex, the positive wire runs closest to the light, so I chose my white wire for the positive connection and gray for my negative connection. You can choose any color though.

I even made up a mantra to keep myself organized: White is light, gray is nay.

I don’t know. It worked for me.

Now, use your wire strippers to strip a teeny tiny bit off or the ends.

After that, go ahead and map out how the wires are going to run to each letter.

5. Solder dem bad boys. (I’m no pro, but this is how I did it.)

Okay, now you need to connect your wires to make this thing work, so go ahead and heat up your soldering iron to about 400 degrees. You may need to turn it down later if the tin starts melting too fast.

This soldering kit is super easy to use if you’ve never tried it before. Clean your tip, (I used the conical one) and apply soldering paste to it so that it doesn’t oxidize as it heats up.

Dip each end of the stripped wire in the paste. Tin your gun and immediately apply it to the end of each wire. Also, apply a drop of tin on the two copper pads.

Clean your tip on the wet sponge as needed.

Join the wires to the copper pads.

6. Drill holes in acrylic or poke them if you are using a drop cloth

Map out where the wires are going to go, and drill holes so that they can be ran through the back. Luckily, if you are using a scripted font, you won’t need as many because several letters are made from a single piece of neon flex.

7. Glue your letters down.

Map out how your wires are going to run in order to make an open circuit. Think of it like a string of Christmas lights; if one bulb blows, everything goes out.

Here’s what the silicone looks like..

If you have a sharp curve in a letter, use the glue to stick the flex against itself and hold it in place with a chip clip. Then, use silicone to attach the letter to the backing.

8. Run the wires through the back of the sign.

Pull the unwired ends back through the front and solder them to letters that do not have a light source yet.  You can test each part as you go along to make sure it works.

9. Cut the connector part of the cord off.

Should you decided to do this, test the light one last time to make sure everything is A-OK before you slice this connector off.

Cut it off, drill a hole to put the wires through, then solder some wire to extend the cord.

10. You are all finished with your DIY neon sign!

Yay!

How much does it cost to make a light-up wedding sign?

This project costs around $124. It would be $86.64 if you go with the drop cloth method, or even less if you can find a sneeze guard someone is giving away to use for the backing.

As I said, this isn’t a perfect process, but I was so proud of it on our wedding day. I’ll be uploading posts about all of the wedding decor I made in the next few weeks, so be sure to check back in shortly!

If you make this, please tag me!

@kaylafaith1010

I would love to see how yours came out!

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Step by step guide for making your own neon sign.