DIY Metal Race Car Sign Using A Pizza Pan

My son is crazy about race cars. So of course, I’ve been converting his baby room into a big boy room, complete with a subtle race car theme. I was recently inspired to come up with new ideas for these pizza pans from the Dollar Tree. I created this jute rope tray before and now had the perfect opportunity to try something different. For the Less Is More Series this month, I decided to create a DIY Metal Race Car Sign using a Dollar Tree pizza pan. Please check out the DIY project created by Junette at Windmill & Protea at the end of this tutorial.

These pans are inexpensive and easy to work with. They make a great base for projects.

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Here’s a list of the items used:

Dollar Tree Pizza Pan

Checkered Con-tact Paper

Black Permanent Vinyl

Cricut Explore Air 2

Dollar Tree Jute Rope

Hot Glue Gun

Hammer (mine is from this kit)

Small Robertson (Square) Screwdriver (mine is from this kit)

Metal File

Styrofoam

Why The Racing Flag Sign

My son loves purple with a passion. It’s been his favourite color since he even learned what it was to have a favourite color. I had updated his nursery wall collage to reflect his passion for purple and cars with pictures of different vehicles set in a purple border. But now that his collage wall is a dark purple itself, the wall collage needed a new, brighter look. And these aluminum pans are perfect for reflecting light and brightening up the wall.

The plan is to make another sign to hang beside this one, but we’re going to start with the checkered race flag sign. Let’s be honest, trying to cut and piece together each individual black and white square of the checkered flag would be a huge pain in the ass. I knew there was checkered duck tape available, but after searching every supply store in my city, I came home empty-handed. Even my husband took a look around. But I did discover checkered contact paper. It’s similar to a removable vinyl, but since the sign isn’t going to be touched once it’s hung up, I wasn’t concerned about it peeling off. And it saved my hands and back from the work of lining up a ton of black and white squares.

Find Your Measurements & Design

The inside diameter of the pizza pan up to the curve is 11.5″. I created a circle matching that diameter in Cricut Design Space. Then I created the race car flag signs within that circle so there would be space around the edges. Don’t forget to create the flag poles too. You can also select from many pre-made options on Design Space. At this point, you could also add a name or initials to the design.

Cut Your Design

A section of the checkered contact paper was cut and placed on the Cricut cutting mat. The setting I used was vinyl. After I had the checkered flags cut out I realized that if I had placed the checkered pattern on an angle then they would have better fit the “blowing” shape of the flags. This is something you may want to play around with to create a more accurate checkered flag appearance.

So after the checkered flags were cut, I used plain black permanent vinyl for the flag poles.

Place Your Design On The Pan

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Attach the flags to the pan first, making sure to smooth out any bubbles. Then lay your flagpoles on top. I found this to be the better look for the racing flags instead of the flags overtop of the flagpoles.

Initially, this is where I was going to stop. But I didn’t like how plain it looked. There are galvanized baskets in my sons room, with rope handles. I decided to stick to that theme and add rope around the lip of the pizza pan sign. Hot glue was used to attach it and it worked out really well. This touch of jute really finished off the look of the sign.

Add A Hole To The Pan

You need a way to hang your sign though! You could use command strips or if you have a few tools around, you can easily punch a hole through the aluminum pan. Make a mark near the top of your pan without going into the side slope or the lip. Make sure this mark lines up with the center of your sign design too so it doesn’t hang slightly offset.

You’re going to want to protect your work surface for this next part. I stuck a piece of styrofoam underneath the pan so I didn’t puncture my floor or worktop. Then I placed a small Robertson (square) screwdriver on the pan mark and used a hammer to to puncture the pan with my screwdriver. A couple of hits and I had a small hole for a nail to fit through.

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But you don’t want the rough metal on the back of the sign to scratch up your walls (or cut yourself on). Use a metal file to file down the rough aluminum edges on the back your metal sign where the hole was punctured. It’s worth taking the time to do this step if you have a file on hand.

And here is the final result!

Note, I did not glue the car directly onto the sign. My son would have been too disappointed that he couldn’t play with it, but the thought crossed my mind. You could pick up a toy car for the purpose of gluing it to your sign if you’d like.

Have fun creating this Race Flag Metal Sign from a pizza pan! Has this project inspired you to do any other sign designs? I’d love to hear about them!

Here is a fun 5-Minute Home Decor Project from Windmill & Protea:

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Pin It for Later! DIY Metal Race Car Sign