A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away somewhere in the millions pins on pinterest, I found the perfect gift for my father. The problem was it's $75. Not that I'm not willing spend that much on my dad, it's just that I could make something like it myself for much cheaper. That's what I set out to do this Christmas.
My first step was to find free pallets. You can generally find them on Craigslist or behind a store. I went to my normal store and picked up three snow covered ones. Then the hubbs and I deconstructed them. We use our circular saw to cut along the edges and then see-saw it off the center nails. It's not a fast going process but it's not as slow as it could be.
Half the time we pulled the boards off the center pallet support the nails came with it. Make sure you a handsome husband around to pound out those rusty things.
Make sure he's also around to use the power tools. God forbid us women folk use them...
From one large pallet we got a pretty decent pile of wood boards. For my dad's sign, I used three pieces of wood that were 25" long and between 4.5" and 6" wide. The final product was 17"x25".
Next, I took the boards I was going to use and sanded the crap out of them. The only bad thing about pallets is that they're so roughly cut. It takes forever to get the natural grain back out. Here's a before and after picture.
I wiped them down to get most of the excess dust off and left them overnight to dry. Back at it the next day I used mending plates with #8x1/2" sheet metal screws to connect the boards. I used three instead of the four boards I sanded. It looked best with the frame I picked out.
Then I white washed the boards all together and left it to dry overnight - mainly because I'm lazy I had other to do. While it was drying, I worked on the wording and fonts I wanted to use for the frame. I ended up using Aquarelle and KG Hard Candy Solid for the words. I used a lead pencil to shade in the back of the page so that I could transfer the words onto the wood. Using a pencil I traced the outside of the words so that I could painstakingly paint the words on. The things I do for those I love. I tell ya. Here's my process:
I took my frame - which was an stand up frame - and took off the kick stand (what do you even call that thing?). I then put in a saw tooth hanger on the frame so that I could mount it on the base. With two more sheet metal screws attached it's ready for mounting.
Fast forward a week...Ryan finally decided to work on his "honey do" list. Which included getting an 8"x10" print from our wedding. In the mean time, I put in two D-ring hangers (attached with sheet metal screws) to the back of the base.
Armed with the right picture, I finally finished it! I'm almost positive this is going to go over well Saturday when my dad opens it. By the way, good luck finding a box to fix this...
I spend $5 for the picture, pennies for the screws (if you think about per piece), let's say $2.50 for a three pack of D-ring hangers (so $1.67 for the pair), about $3.25 for the mending plates, and finally $12.50 for the 8"x10" frame. Add that all up and it's about $25 for materials (including tax). That's a steal compared to what you would've paid for just the frame. All in all, I say win.
What do you guys think? Something easy you could do? Who would you make one for and what would it say?
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