A New Venture

Happy Wednesday Friends! As I'm writing this it is late Wednesday evening so that means the weekend is just a little bit closer; and that is always a good thing.

For a few weeks now I've been hinting around at something- I mentioned that the yellow chairs I redid are for sale. And if you follow me on Instagram you would have seen this picture:

Those my friends would be price tags for the furniture I'm going to sell!

Getting A Handle On It

Sorry for the lack of posting after Labor Day Weekend- things have been busy around here as of late! Just a quick DIY for you today. Do you remember back when I mentioned our old house was the gift that kept on giving? Well it's still giving two years later and we don't even live there anymore!

I had saved several old door knobs from our 1930's house and brought them with us when we moved. I already used most of them but still had the glass one left to make something out of.

(See how I made these useable in this post)

For the glass knob I made this:

Pretty simple but I like the contrast of the glass and the old salvaged wood. The wood is left over from my Pallet Texas, the knob and key hole from our old home. 

I just cut some wood down to size, sanded, screwed the key hole on, then predrilled a hole to screw my door knob into. 

(Only picture I had depicting screw in a door knob)

Simple and effective! Have you created anything for free lately?

Deep In The Heart of Texas

You probably know by now that I hail from Louisiana, I went to LSU, and love all things Cajun. But you may not know that I did a lot of growing up in Houston, TX. And you probably don't know that my youngest sister lived most of her life in Houston and even though she now goes to LSU herself her heart belongs to Texas. So when she asked me to make her some Texas wall art I wasn't surprised. A little heart broken but not surprised.

She wanted something rustic, with colors that matched her room, and was in the shape of Texas. Soooo....

Rustic Wall Art - Part 2

I know this post is late getting out but this project took longer than anticipated! I hope everyone had a great weekend and wonderful Monday! (As good as Monday's get at least.) 

I wanted to share with you the second part of the rustic wood art for Con-Man's room! Last week I showed you how I used pallets to build my canvas. Now I want to show you want I did with it. I've mentioned before that COn-Man LOVES cars; especially Lighting McQueen.

So I thought it would be appropriate to have Lighting McQueen make an appearance in his room. I started by finding an image of Lighting online. I enlarged it then printed it out in sections. If you want to use the image and try this project out yourself I provided the link to the download below.

Download

After printing all the sections of the image I cut it out and taped it together to make a template.

*If any of the following steps seem confusing just let me know- this took me a while to figure out how to put everything together, cut it out and then reattach. 

The next step was fitting my wood pieces together. (I only did this part for the outer sections.) I used long strips of a 1x2 that I cut in half to attach the pallet wood pieces together. First by drilling pilot holes then screwing them together.

Since the pallet wood was a little flimsy on the ends I used some Gorilla Wood Glue to hold them together.

Next I traced the image of Lighting onto the wood canvas I created.

I cut the inner pieces out first. I had to glue some of my smaller inner pieces together using wood glue.

Then it was time to cut the outer sections. 

This part had a lot of curves to so I had to cut it in pieces. 

And it might be time to invest in a real work bench. Our picnic table can't take any more abuse.

Seeing how everything is coming together!

This is how everything is attached in the back.

All done and hung! Con-Man thought it was pretty cool to have Lighting McQueen hanging in his room.

I like the way it turned out but I'm debating on doing one more treatment to this project before it's fully complete. 

What do you think? Not bad for a completely free piece of art?!

And sorry about the not so great picture quality- there is a rumor that I might get a new camera for Mothers Day since my old one bit the dust.

Another Pallet Sign: Happy Halloween

I had such a good time fooling around with the Silhouette the other day that I wanted to play with it some more this week. I had some pallet wood leftover from the last pallet project and went about painting it up.

I knew I wanted candy corns as embellishment. I totally lucked out that the day I went to look Silhouette download of the day was candy corn! I know there not that expensive to download but I still like getting the free ones when I can!

This was a fun little (free!) project to get us further into the Halloween Spirit!

Linking to

Pallet Wood Sign

This past weekend I was talking about how much I liked pallet wood. I mean it's free wood what's not to love? 


So I thought I would put my money where my mouth is and go find me a pallet. It wasn't that hard, there seem to be a bunch of them lying around our small town. I thought that I'd need my husband's truck to pick one up since Con-Man and I rock the Murano. But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that one pallet fits perfectly in the back of my car!

Once i got it home and unloaded I tried prying the planks off with my hammer. But the wood seemed like it was going to split. I mean, this pallet did not want to be taken apart. Has anyone else had this problem? If I'm really going to use pallet wood for my new dining table I need to figure this problem out. Anyway in the end I used my circular saw to cut pieces off. Take that pallet!

Once I got my pieces off they were splintery and rough. So I sanded the wood down A LOT to make them smooth.

Before

After

To get the size I needed for my sign I clamped 2 wood pieces together. First with a little Gorilla Wood Glue on the edges and finished off with some mending plates.

To make the decorative wording on the sign I figured it was finally time to use the Silhouette I won from Donna at Funky Junk Interiors. I typed up some some wording that from a song I've always liked. The song "You Are My Sunshine" was written by a past Louisiana Governor and has always had a special place in my heart.

I filled in the stencil I had created with blue paint, then came back with white paint to highlight the wording. The sanded it some to distress it.

This was a fun little project because not only did I get to practice tearing apart a pallet I got to use my Silhouette for the first time! I can see why so many people love them.

What do you think? Have you had a pallet experience you'd like to share? Have you used a Silhouette before?

And don't forget tomorrow is the last day to enter the Dremel Giveaway!!

Showing Some Love to Pallets

I don't know if people are tired of seeing projects made of pallets but I certainly am not. I'm not sure if its the natural patina of the wood, the linear structure, or just the fact that you can find these things for free that really draws me to them. There seems to be newer and cooler ideas of what to do with old pallets everyday! 


I guess I'll start off with the queen of pallets; Donna from Funky Junk Interiors. Have you seen all the stuff she's made with pallets? Here's her famous pallet desk:

Donna has made tons of other cool stuff with pallets. She even has a post on how to find and use pallets.


After you read that you'll be ready to scavenge out and get some pallets of your own. Here are some more palle-riffic ideas:


A Spice Rack:

Source

A lounge-y Pallet Sofa:

Source

Office furniture made from pallets:

Source

A Book Carosel: (An Industrial Spool, technically not a pallet but it's cool)

Source

Outdoor Hanging Garden:

Source

Outdoor Lounge Chairs:

Source

And what I'm hoping to make using pallets- A formal dining table!

I can build the frame out of steel with my welder, find me some pallet wood, and bam! Awesome dining table! 

The weather is getting cooler so it will be nicer to be outside welding. My hope is to get this started and finished before Thanksgiving. We shall see if that actually happens.

What are your thoughts on pallets? Love em? Hate em? Sick of seeing them everywhere?

And don't forget there's still time to enter the Giveaway for the Dremel Saw Max! (Ends on October 4, 2011)