Flower Crate from Pallet Wood

I made this crate from pallet wood I had and 3 Mason type jars that I bought at the grocery store, that once contained spaghetti sauce.

To get the correct length to cut, I put the jars right on a piece of wood and put some scraps between to represent the dividers, allowing just enough space to fit the jars in with a bit of room on each side. For my jars the length was 12 1/2".

I used the full width of my wood (it is 3 5/8") so that is the height of the crate as well as the inside bottom width.

I placed one board on the bottom and the two upright sides and measured to get the size of the end pieces.  I cut those and also the middle dividers which fit between the sides. I used a pin nailer to attach the parts together.

I applied a quick coat of my vinegar and steel wool mixture and let that dry, then I dry brushed white paint over the top. After that I hand painted "Les Fleurs" on one side and "Flowers" on the other.

I sold this crate, along with the jars and the flowers shown, at the first Farmers' Market I took it to.  So many of my items have gone to the market and home again many times and this sold only a few days after I made it.  Wish I could figure out what people want... I'm not sure if I should make another one?

Sharing at the following blog parties:
No Minimalist Here
Beyond the Picket Fence
Common Ground
French Country Cottage
Homespun Happenings
My Repurposed Life
Rooted in Thyme

Pallet Tables

I am so behind in my blogging, I will have to just do some quick posts to try to catch up...

I made two tables last year, completely out of pallet wood.

I even had some 2 x 2s with my pallets.  Those I cut in two to make the length of the legs (about 19" long") so there was no wastage. The construction is basic and you can see it here:

and here is a close up:

I don't nail or screw down the tops because they can change widths with changes in humidity, so I use Z clips that insert into a groove in the apron of the table.  This allows the top to expand and contract as the clips move in and out a bit while still in the groove.

One of my tables was painted with a dry brush technique using turquoise paint on the legs and aprons and white solid paint on the top:

For the second second table I used a technique I had not tried before but found Becky using for some of the creations at her blog Beyond the Picket Fence (thanks Becky!)  First the top was painted in turquoise and then after it dried I sanded it smooth so that the turquoise paint was still in the crevices of the rough pallet wood.  Then I wiped stain over the painted top and wiped off the extra.  Also, I stained the legs and apron.

Here's a close up of the top with my little model:

The top is 18" x 18" and the table is 20" high:

I've used a lot of pallet wood in my creations, it's hard to believe so many people just throw it away!

Sharing at the following blog parties:

My Repurposed Life

Beyond the Picket Fence

Jennifer Rizzo

Common Ground

Homespun Happenings

Miss Mustard Seed

Too Much Time on My Hands

Three Mango Seeds

Funky Junk Interiors

be colorful

How to Save Ink When Printing Large Fonts for Signs, etc.

I make a lot of signs and I've seen many bloggers that do the same.

However, some of you are printing out your letters and numbers in full solid black ink.  Did you know that if they are large letters you can just print out the outline?  Usually that is all you need anyway.

I use the carbon paper transfer technique where I print the words on my home printer and then put a piece of carbon paper between the printed words and the wood.  I show it more detailed here in this blog post

And that post shows my fonts printed as solid filled in letters.  This was a few years ago before I discovered that there was a way to just print the outlines.

Now I print just the outlines so they look more like this:


Before: 

    After:  

Okay, here's the steps:

·       Open your word program (I use Microsoft Word Starter 2010 which came free with my computer, other programs may be different, but most should have this option for outlining.)

·       Go to the Home Tab if you are not already there

·       Type your word or words in the font you prefer and enlarge to the size you want. (I find with small or thin fonts I don’t worry about the letter being filled in because it won’t save much or any ink anyway.)

·       Highlight the text you want to outline.

·       While still at that Home Tab, look for the small “Font” heading under where you have chosen your font and also under the place where you select Bold, Italic and Underline, etc. Click on the tiny arrow to the right of where it says “Font” and to the left of where it says “Paragraph” 

·       You should be in a box with two tabs, Font and Advanced.  You should be in the Font tab, if not, select that.

·       At the bottom click on “Text Effects” 
·       This will take you to another box and the first thing should be “Text Fill,” for this application (outlining) select “No Fill”

·       Do not Close yet, pick the next heading down on the left which is “Text Outline” and select “Solid Outline” and then choose Black or what you prefer for the colour.  I leave the Transparency at “0 %”

·       Click Close to get out of that box and then OK to get out of the first Font box.

Your letters should then show as outlined!

At this point you can still highlight them and change them or make them bigger or smaller by using the original Font name and size box.

 I hope that this has helped some of you, it certainly has saved me a lot of ink over the past couple of years. Thanks to Deb of Lake Girl Paints for encouraging me to write this and helping me to test it out.

Sharing at these blogs:

My Repurposed Life

No Minimalist Here

Beyond the Picket Fence

DIY by Design

House of Hepworths

Common Ground

French Country Cottage

Jennifer Rizzo

Homespun Happenings

Remodelaholic

Funky Junk Interiors

Too Much Time on My Hands

Between Naps on the Porch

Three Mango Seeds

Cedar Hill Ranch's The Scoop

Coastal Charm

Elizabeth & Co.

be colorful

Bad blogger

Apparently I haven't posted for a whole month.  In that time, however, I have been working on quite a few different things.  I also had two custom online orders in one week, one from New York City and one from Florida. I'll post on those later.

I'm going on a holiday to Myrtle Beach, SC and I still haven't posted about my trip last October to Tybee Island, GA.

            So behind... what a bad blogger I am!

I'll just post a quick photo from Tybee and hope that the lack of blogging hasn't lost me viewers:

Bunnies-on-a-stick

How about some bunnies-on-a-stick?

I found a bunny silhouette here at the Graphics Fairy and blew it up to a size that would work for me.  I cut one about 12 1/2" long out of rough faced pine that is 3/8" thick.

I used a dowel for the stick and a scrap piece of pine cut to 3 1/2" x 2" for the base. A hole was drilled into the base and the dowel glued into that.  I cut a flat spot on one side of the dowel and then glued it on the back of the bunny.  First I coated it the whole thing with amber shellac and then dry brushed white paint over it.

These bunnies stand about 11 1/2" high, but could be made in any size at all.

An easy to make, fun little accessory for spring, or anytime!

Everything I make is for sale, please check my For Sale page, or contact me.

Showing at the following blogs:
My Repurposed Life                                   Shabby Art Boutique
Homespun Happenings                               Old Red Barn
Too Much Time on my Hands                      The Graphics Fairy
Jennifer Rizzo                                            Three Mango Seeds
Elizabeth & Co.                                          Funky Junk Interiors

Life is better at the cottage

We had more snow last night... the ground is still covered in too much snow.

So, I thought I'd show this sign I made not long ago:

Not that I have a cottage to go to, but I do live on the lake, so I'm not complaining except I wish it wasn't solid ice right now.

Everything I make is for sale, please check my For Sale page, or contact me.

Sharing at the following blogs:
Common Ground                         My Repurposed Life
House of Hepworths                    Homespun Happenings
Jennifer Rizzo                             Old Red Barn
Too Much Time on my Hands      Three Mango Seeds
Elizabeth & Co.

Making Interior Pine Doors - Part 8: hanging the doors

This is Part 8 of a series that starts here

Finally hanging the doors is the next step in this long process.

I stand my doors in the opening they will go in and put them on a flat scrap of wood, just enough to give the clearance under the door that I want. I use about 1/8" - 3/16" up off the floor.  Then I mark the top and bottom of the hinge recesses I've already cut out on the doors. I tape a hinge onto the door frame at the correct spot and trace around it with a pencil:

Then I carefully cut around the pencil marks, to a depth of about 1/16", with a sharp knife:

As I showed in the previous post, my router bit was set to the thickness of the hinge:

Then, I routered out the space by hand being very careful to stay inside the cut lines. I could have tried to clamp some type of stop blocks on the frame, as I did for the doors, but I didn't do that.

This was a little difficult to do the top hinges, since I had to stand on a chair, but anyway...

I was very careful and watched through the opening in the router base to see where I was:

I cleaned up the uneven spots and squared up the corners with a chisel and the hinge fits right in:

My dogs watched the process intently!

These are hinges with removable pins so I screwed each hinge side to the doors and the other side to the frames.  Then I lined them up and dropped the pins in. 

I have not finished the door rails and stiles with polyurethane yet, just the panels and the door frames, so the colour is different, but here's the doorway between my shop and my front room:

and here is the doorway between my shop and my husband's garage:

Now I need to make some door stops, the narrow strips on the door frame that doors butt up against when closed.  Also I have to cut the windows and make strips to hold them in.  

Sharing at the following blogs:

Homespun Happenings

Sawdust Girl