Pallet of Colors

I have a confession...I may be slightly addicted to pinterest.  Im sure most of you are too, its a sickness that makes me want to spend all my money on cute ideas.  While I was trolling pinterest, I saw this really cool looking headboard

Source

So cool right!  Well I already have an awesome headboard (which you can see here) but I need some cool wall art for on either side of my TV and I thought this was simple enough to do the trick without overpowering the TV.  Now let me should you my before shot

No bad, but not good enough for me.  So now I can show you the project!!  I got the inspiration to use pallets from here.  But I wasnt crazy about the flowers I thought that might be too busy for the TV area so it was a blend of ideas to creat my final project, which see below for the after!!

Yes I am about to watch Once Upon a Time, and why arent you its an awesome show!

I think it brings a lot more color to the roon and is just a little cooler to look at...what do you think?

Ok on to how to make this baby...first you need a pallet.  My husband works for a plumbing supplier and they have loads of pallets so that was totally free yay!  So before I get down to the nitty gritty...here is what you are going to need

• 1 pallett---all of the pieces (free)
• paint of your choice, varying shades (free)
• crobar (free)
• saw (free)
• nail/hammer (free)
• painters tape/paint brush ($5)
• pencil/ruler (free)
• screw/wire (for hanging) (free)

Total cost for this project...$5!!!  What, thats amazing!!

Looks kinda ugly right?  Well dont worry we are painting it so no worries.  Now you have to get the boards off, and if you have a cro-bar that would be best. Joe had to use a hammer and that was pretty hard so if you have a crobar make it easy on yourself.  Below are the boards cut down to the measurements I gave Joe.  I wanted the project to be 15wide by 30 long, so I plank from the pallet was long enough for 2 strips.  You can also see from the picture here that we used the pallet support beams as cross beams for the art. 

Here it is all put together ready for paint.

I first thought to whitewash it (I hadnt decided if I wanted to do the color blocks or the flowers yet) and that turned out pretty well, and I think also helped with the paint.  It was kinda like primer but didnt bring up all the pulp that comes out of the wood when you use regular primer (more to come on whitewashing later)

I let these sit overnight to make sure the paint had set.  The next day I started taping out the lines for the stripes.  I wanted each pallett art to be different so I measured the stripes at different heights.

I used a paint stirrer as my guide and a pencil to do the initial lines then went back and put painters tape over the lines.  Remember that where you put the tape you cant paint otherwise you will have gaps between the stripes so be mindful of that when you put the tape down.  You can see below what I did to make sure I kept that straight.

Now you have your painters tape down get to painting.  I had plenty of leftover paint from the walls and color samples so that was free too!

Let that sit overnight so that when you put the second layer of painters tape down it doesnt pull off you paint you just did.  Once it has dried and you get your second tape down, paint again.

Wait for the paint to dry and remove the tape.  Now if you are like me you will have to do some touch ups, but if you have one of those sponge paint brushed that has a stright edge this is pretty easy.  Once its dry, you can screw your screws and wire into the back of the boards and hang them up!  Make sure you use an anchor when hanging these babies are pretty heavy!

Pretty easy, pretty cheap and pretty fun too!  I feel like an artist enough though I cant draw to save my life!  DO you have a space that this art would be perfect for?  Let me know, and what do you think of this art?  Should I leave it or do the flowers pallet art?  I think I need a second opinion

Project Housewife Out!



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Chalk it Up

I was working on 2 really awesome easy projects this weekend but right when I was about to finish I realized I was missing some final touches so those are going to have to wait...but today I have the super awesome chalk board paint to talk about!  No I dont know how to make the paint myself (but if you want to know check out this link), my neighbor had a whole quart left from her project and let me use it.  We have all seen the chalk board paint menu boards on pinterest, but they are so pretty how can you do it yourself?!  Well I decided to try my hand at the chalk board paint menu board and you can see below (along with a sampling of our menu, arent I making you hungry lol) how it turned out.  Yes I know its red/green/white, but sometimes its hard for me to give up Christmas, I cant help it!

This was really easy because I didnt do one step I will have to recommend to you.  We have textured walls (and I am going to assume so does pretty much the rest of America) so that presents a challenge when you write on the board.  People will tell you to smooth out the wall before you put the paint on and I will have to agree with them.  I didnt because I have engrained in me that you want to remember the re-sale value of the house and not doing anything to crazy to alter it.  I think if someone came to buy our house they would find it a little weird that one wall had no texture and the rest of the house didnt so I left it textured.  I put painters tape up against the cabinets and around the edge of where I wanted to stop painting, then busted out the paint brush and paint.  I used a brush because I didnt want to pour the paint out into a tray to use the roller but you can use a roller if you want, it didnt really take me that long to paint this whole area.  After I had the first coat I thought that would be enough, but after writing on it once I realized that yes I did need 2 coats.  After the second coat went on Im happy with it now. 

Ok this is where the "you want to smooth out the walls" comes into play.  I bought chalk board paint (which is so much more fun and easier to write with than real chalk) and wrote on the walls.  Well the texture #1 makes it a little harder to write on the wall and #2 makes it harder to get it off.  The chalk paint gets in the crevices of the wall and makes it hard to wipe it off, it comes off eventually but patience is required.  If you are ok with those 2 things then by all means skip the smoothing out of the wall!

I love my menu board, my husband has stopped asking "What's for dinner" and will even start cooking sometimes when its easy and he knows how to do it.  I also love that I had this one random wall that you cant see from the living room but it totally visable throughout the kitchen.

I hope you have fun with chalk and let me know where you used the chalk board paint and for what, I would love to hear your crafty ideas!!

Project Housewife Out!