Crazy about Pallets!

(This post was from 11/15, but for some reason just posted today and I don't know how to change the date.. so just imagine that I posted it then!)


 I went to town on some pallets this weekend...

Wanna seeee?

Headboard for our KING SIZE BED we're getting for Christmas. This is a QUEEN in front of it. Do not think I'm measurement-stupid and over-did it. I did that on purpose :) ALSO bed will be on a platform eventually, so the plywood won't be showing!

Shelf for my cookbooks. I sliced a pallet in half (my craftsmanship is remarkable with a sawzall. Look at those straight lines...) One day I might fix that.

Inspiration: http://www.theroosterandthehen.com/how-to-make-a-pallet-headboard/ 

But, this is what I did instead...
 I bought a boatload of pallets (literally, you could load them into a boat) and white washed most of them. I had some Kilz Ceiling paint leftover, so I mixed 1 part paint to 3 parts water and whisked it to a milk-like texture and just overinduldged all my pallets with said waterpaint. It gave them a weathered- almost mold covered- look and I LOVE it. Obviously, you can see the ones that hadn't gotten it yet, but this was step 4. (1- purchase pallets fpr $1 each from sketchy individual named Stooooneyyyy 2- paint 3-rip them to pieces)

We'll start with 4. Lining them up how I want them on the headboard. I kind of wanted to stagger them like bricks, but due to how anal I am (the ends wouldn't have matched up because they would have been fresh-cut wood edges against the weathered looking sides and I would have had to repaint every SINGLE piece to make it work), and how lazy I am (see previous parenthesis comment about the amt of work it would have taken), I thought this was better! It also was more sanity-saving than staggering would have been. Oh MY, someone would have gotten hurt!

Step 6. Complete.

Step 5. Then I made sure all were painted and lined up. Again. And took 4 of the insidey pieces from the pallets (they're like 2x4s but I don't know the measurements other than it's not 2 OR 4...) to give it an outside even edge on each side...
Step 6. Have children sit in front of it and look freakin ADORABLE.


  

Step 7. Nail to perfectly-measured plywood.  This SHOULD HAVE been the easiest part, as I sawed most of the nails off and just had to pop out 3 per board to nail in the original holes and leave the rest of the original nails, but my foresight when ripping the pallets apart was not the greatest and half of them had the center nail still in them... but beaten down into submission. That had to be removed from half of them--- which took us well past dark and into 50 degree weather. I was soon told to come inside and stop playing out in the dark & cold.

Step 8. Completely unnecessary. Come inside and not freeze to death.

I brought this inside, too, just so it didn't get eaten or infested with bugs on the ground... or bird-pooed on over night. At this time, we realized why other people just NAIL the BOARDS into the WALL instead of putting it on Plywood. It weighed about 200 pounds at this point. (Or maybe 70, but 200 sounds more realistic. I don't know)

After step number 7 was completed the next morning, we had to hang this. At this point- with all the planks on it- the board now weighed about 500 pounds (again, probably more like 100, but really... 500!).
Step #9. Find Studs, make fancy-pants stud-marker-things out of thumb tacks, yarn, and heavy objects. 
That's right, Fancy. Pants. We had to know where the studs where the whole time D was screwing this bad boy into the wall, but couldn't really think of another way besides my extra special way.  

Step 10. Find 10 friends to hold this 1000 lb beast to the wall while someone who knows how to use a screwgun thing screwguns it to the studs. 

Don't have 10 friends, you say?  I guess I could just hold it while D screws it into the wall.

I could just hold it while I remove my arms from their sockets. Yeah. Heavy. Hard to hold. 2 people.

But I wanted it hung that day, so I had to hold it all by myself. I may have gotten splinters in my chest and face at this point, because I was just using my whole body to push it against the wall. I'm thrifty like that.

(Speaking of splinters... you would not believe how many baby splinters I had in my arms, legs, and butt from sitting on and moving this stuff around. Next time, don't wear leggings/tights. Wear real pants. Good to know. Note taken.)

FINISHED PRODUCT 

So beautiful. Now we need to redecorate the bedroom...

This will look so good when we get our new King Size BED!

I am excited!

♥ EM

Way Past-Due Stuff-making updates

This post was from 12/4 but just posted this morning when I realized it never made it... oopsie

So, I know all my updates have been about making stuff- stuff I've made- stuff I'm going to make...
Suck it up, because more is COMING!
This is my first ever experience playing with canvases and putting them where people can see them. Yes. That's right, it's like I'm an artist - except not a really good one! 

This has been completed since October--- well, kinda completed. I'm still not 100% sure that i'm finished. I need to cut the edges off and wrap them, but I kind of think I need another bird.
What do you think?


So, yeah the Edges need cleaned up. Here's the pretty much finished product.

And if you would like to take a tour of my brain... here's the step by step! But be careful, you may get lost in there... 

#0. My inspirational stuff that I looked at and morphed into my own thing: 

   (Both pictures taken from Pinterest) 

#1. I taped (yes, classily taped) the canvases to the wall like I thought I would like. Don't underestimate me, now... this was tape job number 387290 and picture number 30. And calling D freaking out about "ARE YOU SURE THIS IS OK" time number 6.  It's a tough job he has, but someone has to embrace my crazy

#2. I then- Everrrr sooooo carrrrrefullllly ripped pages out of my Alice in Wonderland book and started modge-podge-glue-paper machet-ing them all over the canvases for texture...

#2.5/3ish.  I also cheated and knew where i wanted the branches to be, so I strategically covered the branches in the parts of the book I wanted to be visible. It looks like an accident, but it was 100% plotted out step by step.

And yes, in some of these there is wax paper on the table I'm using. That's because I'm 4 years old and I can't paint or glue anything without getting ie EVERYWHERE. We're talking in hair, on clothes, on the dang dog, and oopsie on the carpet. Maybe my creative artristry is better reserved for the garage...

or maybe I'm just making the place festive with my whoopsie marks?  It might be on purpose. You don't know!

 #3.5/4ish. Painted all non-branchy parts with pretty sky colored paint. Thanks, Martha. You are the stuff. Martha Stewart Craft Paint---- WORD

Just a little bit of some of the words and pictures under the paint show, so it's PERFECT!!!  

#5. We'll go with 5 because I have lost "ish" count.  I took water colors and colored all the branch parts with those. I tried brown- but that was disgusting, so the color I went with in the end was like a mustart and yellow and brown and something else mixed together.  It worked... 

 A Close-up for you...

#6? Is that where we are?  All the texture pages on, paint dried, and branches painted... I picked where I wanted the birdies to go and couldn't decide what I wanted to do with them. I was torn between painting the craft paint around and making them with black watercolor or making them black craft paint... I think I am glad I chose the craft paint- Much easier and prettier. I like the boldness better than if I had made them water-colory and muted.

Closer-up of the birdies:

I'll eventually slice off the edges of the paper that doesn't want to stick to the sides (no matter how much glue I use) and take ribbon and wrap around for smoothness like I did the other 2...  But for now, I'm ok with it.

What have you made recently? Please share!

(please oh please share my 2 blogger friends who sometimes read my blog!)

Don't you worry- there will be more.

I have done a lot since I last wrote...

Enjoy!

♥ EM

Lazy Sunday

Today is a lazy day. We haven't had one of these in a while.

I think I'll try to do a quick little update on the past week or two!

SO Last weekend we were in Atlanta. The Packers played the Falcons at the Georgia Dome and we went down there Friday - Monday. It was some of the bestest fun I've had with my hubby and our kiddos in a while!

We drank a lot of this:

The girls went with us, and lounged around our room...

It must be SO HARD to have their life. :)

On Friday we got there and walked to the closest pub for dinner- it was ridiculous!! The food was a really strange combo of stuff that went perfectly together! Meehan's Pub had a "Holiday Hangover" menu that was only non-holiday food, so it was a pleasant surprise!

Saturday we decided to take 3 hours to find IKEA (I was not impressed. There were 79023281 people in there and you couldn't even take a deep breath without hitting someone. Maybe next time it won't be

so crowded and I'll see what all the fuss is about?) and then ate lunch at The Vortex. Good burger, great atmosphere. We then came back to our hotel to find that our room hadn't been cleaned yet, so we went for about a 13982 hour walk. Only to come back to see that they STILL hadn't gotten to us! Seriously? It was almost 5. DidI mention that we didn't take coats/jackets? Because it was supposed to be kind of warm all weekend. It was not that warm. In fact, it was down right FREEZING at times!

Saturday night, we met some of the people we had met on Friday night (the city was overrun with Packers

fans... it was like we were in Wisconsin!!) And hung out at the pub, then followed them to a 24-hour karaoke bar where they proceeded in drinking until 3 the night before the game... Don't worry, they're PROS. After we left the bar, we heard that one of the guys tackled the Karaoke machine and they were asked to leave. Not to mention they were yelling "FREE BEER! FREE BEER FOR ALL PACKERS FANS!" into the karaoke machine which plays on the street. hahaha They were so much fun, it was like we were with family or something!

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

We got up (sloooowly), had breakfast in our

hotel and saw all the other Pack fans, and started our 1 mile trek to the stadium. Everyone had already beat us to tailgating (granted, we had nothing with which to tailgate), so we walked around and watched the crazies.

We then made our way into the game and it was SO MUCH FUN! This was our first Packers game... and it was a good one to attend. I just wish it would have ended with our team having the higher score.

This is the view from our seats. Not too bad, but not the best. Next time I'll pay the extra and we'll be MUCH CLOSER.

That's about all I got. Pretty boring post, I know, as I have nothing really witty to say today... but there's all the pictures from my phone that I took on our trip! :)