Making a sign for the insect hotel
The Wycliffe Neighborhood Association (WNA) decided to hold a fun day on the 8th of August 2026 to raise funds for the group, and so I thought it would kill two birds with one stone if we got the insect hotel finished off. We had a lot of spare materials, gardening gloves, and a couple of layers left to fill at this point - it seemed like a fun activity for children and a way to promote our work.
A sign
I wanted make a really nice looking hotel sign to help to draw attention to the project, and for a bit of fun. It would be made of wood, but painted to look like an old cast-iron sign, like the old British Railways ones.
Name ideas
We came up with a few insect hotel puns to get started:
- The Best Exotic Mandible Hotel
- Hotel Crawlyfauna
- Bee n Bee
- The Grand Bug-n-pest Hotel
After asking around, "The Grand Bug-n-pest Hotel" by far got the best reaction (a play on Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel) so I decided to go with that.
Design
I wanted to build this sign rapidly, so the design was made in Inkscape to be laser cut in two layers of birch plywood. The font used was Arvo.
I placed an order with RazorLab to get these made, with the back layer in 6mm plywood, and the text and border in 3mm.
Construction and painting
Once the pieces arrived, they were painted using acryllic paint. A grey undercoat was applied first, then the back plate of the sign was painted in burgundy, and the border in a brass effect. The brass-like material was achieved by using a layer of dark brown followed by dry-brushing in gold.
The pieces were then glued together and the painting work was touched up - a little weathering was added to the crevices using watered down black and dark brown paints.
Finally, several coats of an outdoor clear wood varnish were added to give the final effect of a metal sign. This gave a glossy appearance and really helps to highlight the depth.
Installation
Finally the Wycliffe Green Fun Day came around, and we had a great turn-out! The sign was installed, and lots of children from the neighborhood came to help finish off the insect hotel.
