Finally Finished!

Here's the final product :)

I took the wooden pallet that I made with my sister and painted the lyrics to "In Christ Alone" with white acrylic paint. I love this song...we sang it at our wedding :) I used a font website to find different fonts to add some character. It took a couple of coats of paint to completely cover the dark wood underneath. I bought a few lanterns from Home Goods and here is the newly decorated ledge in the living room.

Rustic Wood Pallet

So I thought that I was going to have a sewing tutorial for my first post, but I started this project and decided to just go with it! I’m so happy with how it turned out. I recruited my sister (Kelsey) and my dad to help. You could imagine how excited my dad was to walk through Lowes for his daughter’s “art project” as he called it.

What you need:

• Wood Boards (Sizes will vary depending on the size you want your pallet)
• Brushes
• 2 colors of wood stain (You could easily just use one with some of the techniques I’ll explain later)
• Hammer
• Screws
• Gloves (If you don’t like getting your hands dirty)
• Paper Towels or Rag
• Sander (Or just sandpaper if you want this to double as a workout)
• Saw (If you don't pay the 25 cent cutting fee at Lowes)

First thing you need to do is decide how big you want your pallet. Originally, I wanted a 38x25 but when I went to Lowes I just decided on the most cost efficient size. I bought two 1x6x10 which is 10ft in length, 5 ½ inches wide and ¾ in deep. Yes, I had to Google “how to measure wood.” I had the guy at Lowes cut the boards in 3ft (36in) pieces. I ended up with 6 boards. Then, I bought two 1x2x4 planks to anchor all the 3ft boards together. (Remember to buy untreated wood because treated wood used for outdoor projects will not stain as well).

Also remember to try and pick boards that are not perfect! It will add more character. In the store, my dad asked “Don’t you want to pick smoother boards than these?”  Kelsey: “It doesn’t matter. We are going to beat the heck out of them when we get home!”

Sand each board making sure you round off the edges. This makes them look more worn.

Now for the fun part!

Grab your hammer and “beat the heck out” of your boards haha! Here is a pretty cool video that helps with ideas on how to make the wood look like it has been weathered for many, many years.

 How to Make New Wood Look Old

Staining time! I used gloves because well stain will…stain. Have your paper towels or rags with you when you start.

1^st technique

Brush your darker stain (I used ebony) first. Use your paper towel to wipe excess stain and also making sure the stain gets into each groove.

2^nd technique

Copy 1^st technique then sand again making sure you can see the original color of the wood coming through the darker stain. Then, apply a lighter color stain on top.

3^rd technique  

Brush wood with water first. Then complete 1^st technique. This will produce a lighter color than the 1^st technique alone.

You can't see it but there is water on that!

You can mix-match colors of stain to make different types of boards J Most of the time we were just playing around with the stains and techniques.

Now you can measure and cut your "anchor" pieces (if you didn't already get them cut at Lowes). Measure the size that you need by leaving about an inch from the edges of the boards. Then find a screw that will go through the anchor piece and halfway through the boards. Screw the anchor pieces on each board.

We measured on the front by using a large screw in between each board (to keep it even) then turned the boards over to attach the anchor piece.

After the boards are attached, we stained the back of the pallet using the darker of the two stains.

YAY!! Now you have your rustic wood pallet. Even my dad was impressed with my "art project" J

Want to know what I’m going to do with my new wooden pallet? Stay tuned to see the final product…

My First Blog

So I had to see what all the fuss was about...welcome to my FIRST blog! No this will not be a "cooking" blog if that's what you were hoping for. Ha! I was just trying to find a catchy title using our last name. The main reason I wanted to create this blog is to help capture some new projects or hobbies that have brought me lots of joy over the past couple of years. I'm still very new at many of these things so I thought it would be fun to show the trials and MANY MANY errors that will or have already taken place while learning :) I took art all through middle school & high school and I would have gone to college for it, but my love for food and the cliche "starving artist" scared me away! And I know what you are thinking...no my major was not English either. So please ignore my grammar and lack of writing skills. I hope that this blog will bring some fun insight to my monogramming, sewing, painting, decorating, cooking, baking, diaper-cake-making life :) Stay Tuned!!