Up-cycled Pallet Sign

Yesterday we had a beautiful warm, sunny day, perfect for doing a big craft outside. The girls got to work straight away on the beautiful blue birdhouse (LINK) that they made for the back yard of our new trailer. As for me, it was time to knock something off of my Pinterest wish list (more on that later another day).

I had a neighbour pick me up a wood pallet from a job site that where he was working. Another neighbour helped me to chop it up a little, removing the planks that I wanted for the sign and cutting up pieces for the back to hold it all together (did I mention before that I live on the happiest street on earth? Seriously, best neighbours ever!)

Originally I had picked up the wooden letters at Michael’s for $3.49 each (CRAZY!!) but I figured that was what they cost and wasn’t sure where else to find letters like these. Then my friend told me that the dollar store up the road had wooden letters. For a DOLLAR! SCORE! So I returned my crazy expensive letters and picked up these beauties for $8.

After a light sanding of the plank boards, I used Minwax Ebony stain and applied two coats of stain to the boards, 

wiping the excess stain off with paper towel to really get the stain into the grain of the wood.

Then I used some leftover paint from our living room re-do, watered it down and applied three coats, to the wooden letters. After letting all of the parts dry for a couple of hours, I used wood screws and screwed the stained boards onto the backing pieces.

Because the boards are not perfectly flush and flat, I used No More Nails glue to affix the letters to the boards. 

Next up is a coating of clear polyurethane, installing hooks and wire to hang the sign from the roof gable at the trailer. 

I’ll post some pics next week to show you all how the sign looks in its new home!