I convinced my husband to pick up a pallet for me, but it had been sitting in our driveway waiting for some inspiration for quite a while now. Finally I decided to make some Valentines art with it, but now I like it so much, it’s going to stay up year round.
There is some discussion on the safety of using pallets (see here). I had my husband cut the pallet so I would have enough wood to make four boards each 12” x 12”. I then soaked them in hot water with bleach (to kill any bugs) and used an old toothbrush to clean them off. I left them to dry and then we used wood glue and clamps to glue three boards together to achieve the desired size. I needed to stain the cut ends so I made some steel wool and vinegar stain, but it was very strong so I needed to dilute it a lot.
I made a heart shape template from paper and used that as my guide for the first piece. I nailed nails (appropriately enough) in a heart shape.
That looked boring so I then used kitchen string and wrapped it back and forth across the heart until I was happy with the pattern and tied it off.
For the second heart I used some raffia I had and soaked it in water for a few minutes, I then shaped it into two hearts and weighted them down and left them overnight to dry. I simply used hot glue to attach it top and bottom.
The third heart I shaped some thin copper wire around the nails on the first board and twisted wire to secure them leaving a couple of long ends at both points. I drilled two small holes in the boards and put the ends of the wire through and covered them with hot glue to secure and to stop them from scratching the wall. I was very disappointed with this one as it didn’t stand out very well. I decided to put white glue on the board and covered it with some sand we had. This improved it, but it does look better in person than in the pictures.
For the last board I laid out shells on the template and then slid them off onto the boards, adjusting as necessary. Using hot glue, I attached them to the board.
To hang them I drilled pilot holes (I actually made a template with paper to show where to put the holes and to speed up the process) and put in ¾” screws and tied string to them to create something to hang on the wall hooks.
I am so pleased with these and they look great in our master ensuite. Total Cost: $0.00
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