Pallet Herringbone Heart

I know its been a while.

A few months to be exact.

But September was my first Junk in the Trunk experience.

I was super excited and nervous.

Would my stuff sell?

What is the competition like?

How many pieces are enough?

How am I going to get everything done in time?

Do I have enough wood?

The booth looked amazing! 

{M&J} from Twigs and Twine took a whole lotta

pallet wood and made these walls.

Like 42-ish pallets worth.

The pallets I cut up for the walls were from a Solar Panel company

in Mesa, AZ.  They looked like this, with my sweet and patient

hubby modeling it for me.

They aren't heavy and the wood is more like plywood with layers.

But it is uniform in size, width and length.

If you use pallets with any kind of regularity, that never happens.

Luckily for me I stumbled upon these on Craigslist.

It's always amazes me how that happens.

I need a specific type of pallet wood and a batch

nearly drops in my lap.

It happens again and again.

For that I know I'm extremely blessed.

Anyway back to business.

Since we took apart so many pallets,

we had all the cross pieces left over.

I have a hard time throwing any good wood away,

and I had to think about how to use the leftover wood.

It was easy to cut them apart with a skill saw but

it left me with about 8 inch pieces.

Now what?

I'm a secret Tetris and Dr Mario girl at heart.

Give me anything else and I'm a complete Klutz.

My kids don't let me play because I'll just kill of the character in about 10 seconds.

But give me pieces that have to fit together and I'm all about that.

So these hearts were a natural fit for me.

I love herringbone and chevron shapes.

Why can't I do that with my little pieces of leftover pallet wood?

So I did!

Before Junk in the Trunk opened, they posted this little beauty

on their instagram site.

I was stunned.

Me.

My project.

My art.

Honored and humbled to say the least.

{J} said that the woman who bought this piece waited in line for a long time

to be the first one in the show to run and buy it before anyone else could.

Now I know I should have made more.

This one was 3x3 but I also made some that were 2x2.

Here's a few pics of everything that went to the show.

Everything but 2 pieces sold.

I should have made more.

Did I say that before...

Yep. I should have made more.

So now you want to know how I did it?

Easy.

I cut up the pallets and got a bunch of about 8 inch pieces.

These work well for this heart because they are all the same width and thickness.

It would be hard to do with varying sized wood.

Probably not impossible, but it would be a little more

than my math challenged brain could handle.

After getting the pallets cut up, I used my mitre saw and cut them at

22.5 degrees.  Both sides.

It's Ok that they aren't exactly the same length.

I didn't want the herringbone to be perfect.

Sand and paint the slats.

A little of this, a little of that.

My sweet SIL wanted one with gold so I spray painted some of the pieces

with shiny gold paint and let them dry.

Once the pieces are ready, I need a back.

I buy a thin-ish piece of plywood from Lowe's or HomeDepot

and have them cut it for me.  It needs to be sturdy but not too heavy.

I can get 2 3x3's and 2 2x2's plus some extra

for arrows out of one 4x8 sheet.

I used my jigsaw to cut out the shape.

You can sand the edges at this point, but I usually don't 

because I give the whole thing a good sanding when it's done.

I usually try to start with one side cut straight and start arranging the pieces

alternating colors.

Once it's all covered,

I start gluing, one line of slats at a time.

Be careful to press them into place and keep everything even

and as straight as possible.

I love this part because it really is like a giant game of tetris.

It's ok if the curved part of the heart has pieces hanging over.

You will cut them off when the glue is dry.

I lay whatever I have that is heavy on the slats and let it dry overnight.

Usually it's horseshoes and hand weights. 

Once the glue is dry, flip the heart over, check for any pieces that may have not stuck.  

Re-glue if necessary, then and use a jigsaw to cut around the edge.

I come out about 1/4 inch from the plywood.

Once it's cut, give both sides a good sanding around the edges

and anywhere else you think might need it.

You can add a spray of polyurethane to seal it,

but I don't always do that.

Add hanging hardware and it's done!

My Herringbone Heart!

Love it!

Bits of Everything

I've been crazy busy lately with projects, Christmas and keeping up with custom orders.

(which I love doing by the way!)

Ever since the Junk in The Trunk show in September I've loved making these hearts. 

Someday I will do a tutorial on how they go together.

After making so many of them, I've got it down to a science.

They are so fun and versatile and can be completely customized.

The super unique thing about these are that the wood comes from

solar panel pallets.  The wood is lighter and more of a plywood type.

But the best part is that the wood is all the same thickness and width.

Normal pallet wood isn't at all.

So this design wouldn't work with normal pallet wood.

You could easily buy pine boards to get the same effect

but I like the color differences and texture I get from the pallet wood.

So here's a few pics of what I've been working on.

These hearts are a snap to put together once the pallet slats have been dismantled.

Simply beautiful.

I saw these snowflakes on pinterest and definitely had to make some.

Plus it uses up all my scrap pieces.

Bonus!!

They are super cute and I haven't

taken mine down yet from my front door.

Maybe I'm secretly hoping there will be some snow

here in Phoenix.

I think the closest I will get is this wood snowflake.

Of course I needed a forest to go with it.

Again super easy to put together and it uses my scraps.

I did these signs as my take on one my friend bought at a boutique.

They all sold and I've got another custom order for another one.

I may do one for me.

Love them!!

This last batch are a couple of custom orders I had for Christmas.

I love the challenge of doing a custom piece,

plus having the opportunity to make someone's idea become reality.

And it's back to work.

I promise I will do better and photographing my work and sharing.

Happy New Year!

A Little Custom Numerology

Normally I love doing custom work.

It's fun to try to recreate what people have imagined.

I like it the most when I can use a little artistic license.

This was not one of those times.

The customer saw this board online and wanted one exactly like it.

Except a bigger 8 and a bigger board.

{J} at Twigs and Twine suggested we make the numbers about 10 inches tall.

And they had to be made from multiple kinds of media like wood, plastic, metal.

I looked all over for large metal numbers.

I even went to Signtastic here in AZ and they said for

a thin piece of metal over plastic that size would be

$40-$60 each.  

Yikes!!

Definitely not in the budget.

I could cut them out of different thicknesses of wood 

and paint some to look like metal,

but she didn't like this first version.

The numbers were to squishy.

And the wood is too dark.

It's pallet wood for heavens sake!

No two pieces are alike.

Just the way I like it but unfortunately not the customer.

So I told her I could sand the wood down as much as possible and try to lighten it up a little.
It was a lot of sanding!
And it's still got some black spots from the nails.

Next was to find the numbers.
After a lot of looking online and in stores I scored a jackpot at Lowe's.
I got all these numbers for under $20.
Sweet!

Then I just had to buy a 0, 4, and 8, which I got from Hobby Lobby for about $13.
I cut the 7 myself out of plywood along with cutting the center out of the 0.

I had to text this picture to make sure 

the customer was happy with it before 

I took the numbers out of their packaging.

Huzzah!  She loved it!

Now a bit of paint.

She also wanted the 8 to be framed and stand out.

So I cut a piece of plywood, used some furring strips to make the frame

and glued it all together.  

It also got glued to the board along with the 0, 4, and 7.

I knew there was no way I could figure out how to screw them in place from the back

and I didn't want nail or screw holes seen from the front.

I think it turned out super cute and after a bit of stress worrying about

how to put it together, I'm glad it's done.

Perfect for a boys room or a baby room!

Busy Busy... with some Arrows!

I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted.
Life has been really crazy... stressful... more crazy... busy... and more busy lately.
I'm still creating with pallet wood nearly all the time,
but since my iPhoto crashed because I didn't upgrade my operating system (Ugh!)
I haven't been able to access the pics of the latest projects.

I still have a little soft spot in my heart for arrows.
I love making them!  I still make these all the time because they always, always sell!
Each batch is a little different, sized, color, etc. but still fun and funky.

{J} over at Twigs and Twine has asked me to do some string art for a while.
I though I could try it with arrows instead of the generic hearts you see all over pinterest.

Boring!

Especially for a crafting ADD girl!
And while these turned out cute, I didn't love the process as much as I thought I would
and haven't made anymore since.
They did sell however and I might try again sooner or later.

It's super easy.
I just have gotten out of the habit of taking pictures of the process.
I will try to explain.

First get your pieces of pallet wood and cut to size.
Screw them together from the back with a couple of cross pieces.
I used some paper and cut out an arrow that would fit the space on the board.
Fold it in half before cutting so the sides are the same.

Lay the paper template on the board and mark where the nails will go.
They are pretty evenly spaced but not to tightly placed.
Make sense?

Tap some finish nails in that have a decent size head to them.
You want the string to stay in place and not slip off over the top of the nail.

I used some crochet thread that I had on hand to string the arrows.
Tie a square knot at one end and start stringing.
I wrapped the string around the nail 360 degrees to secure and move on to the next nail.

Keep going keeping the string taught.
If you don't like it, just unwind and start over.
Easy peasy!
Tie off the end and you're done!

Now for the pics!

These last pics are from the same batch.

I think I went a little arrow crazy with these

but I think they are fun and whimsical.

Each one is hand painted on.

It was fun playing with different arrow designs!

Perfect for a boys room or man cave!

Sorry my staging doesn't depict that.

I'm really bad at staging.

Maybe if my life would calm down a bit I'd have time...

Wishful thinking!

Arrows.

Just Awesome!