Pallet Neglect

My newest project is really an old project. I've had this pallet "canvas" sitting in my garage since last summer. I'm sure it's been that long because I had Tom pick up an old pallet laying by the side of the road when he still had his little blue truck. And that's been gone since June. So there you go - 8 months. Way to get on things, Barb.

We're lucky enough (ha!) to have quite a bit of new home construction going on in the area so there are always old pallets nearby. And if you give them a couple of weeks, the elements will do most of the weathering for you. Not that I don't know how to weather some boards, but it's nice to have a bit of authenticity once in a while.

Tom let me know that since this was my project, I was going to have to take the pallet apart myself. A quick lesson on how to work a crowbar and off I went. I took it all apart, chose the best boards, and gave them a brief sanding. Then Tom screwed them together for me using a piece of plywood on the back. (The picture below is of the back, pre-plywood.)

This sign is going to go in the basement where I'm aiming for a beachy feel- lots of tans and soft blues. I dipped into my stock of mis-tinted paint and chose a greenish-grey colour. I watered down the paint a lot -so that as much of the real wood grain and colouring would come through as possible. This guy is rough looking right now, but I'm going to wax it when I'm all done.

So it was stripped, sanded, and painted. And that's when it sat. For months. Not because I forgot about it, but because I was dreading cutting out the stencil. This was going to be a BIG stencil. The biggest stencil I've ever made. And then a miracle happened. I got a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas. Yay!!! Oh. Now I have to get the sign done, don't I?

I've spent the last couple of evenings playing with fonts and spacing in Photoshop until I had what I wanted. And last night I got to cutting. While it would be nice to use the stencil plastic that came with the machine, I don't have nearly enough. I learned the hard way that you can't put construction paper through the Cameo without the cutting mat. It folds up like an accordion and the machine makes very unhappy noises. But if you use the mat, the paper then sticks and won't come off without ripping. Next idea? I moved on to my old standby - freezer paper. So much easier, if a bit thinner.

These first ones I cut are just a test run. I like the size but I think I'm going to cut some of the letters out individually (like the Y's) so that I can move them closer together.

It's all moving along well (a little too well), and I can't wait to get to the painting part of the program.

Have you made a pallet sign? 

Did it take forever? 

Was picking out what to say the hardest part?