793rd Way to MacGyver a Pallet

If you've been living under a rock, you may not know that you can MacGyver a pallet into anything...picture frames, shelves, furniture, a patio, a rocket ship...the possibilities are ENDLESS.  So, since the 4th of July was coming up and I was starting to feel patriotic, I decided to whip up a lil' pallet artwork:

I'm a LITTLE bit in in love with it.  I could stare at it All. Day. Long.  E is not so enamoured.  He was not a fan of the dirty old pallet when I brought it home in my trusty Sorento.  I told him about my plan to MacGyver it into something amazing and he just stared at me.  Then he went golfing (or to work, I forget which).


Anyway, I got to work pulling the boards on the pallet apart.

I used two hammers to pry apart the boards.  It took much longer than first anticipated.  Somehow, I took a hammer to the face.  I called it quits and had a bottle glass of wine after that.

The next day me and my black eye finished up prying the boards apart and started rebuilding the pallet with all the boards on one side.

I just screwed all the thin outer boards into two of the thicker support boards with drywall screws.  I lined up (not too perfectly) the nail holes on each end of the thin boards to be on the outer edge of the support boards.  I pre-drilled holes with a 3/32 drill bit and then drilled one 1-5/8 inch drywall screw on each end of the thin boards (2 screws/board) and...BAM! Pallet Canvas.

For the next part, you probably don't NEED to hang your pallet canvas on the wall, but if you want to copy me exactly my back was getting sore from working on the floor, so on the wall it went.

Find yourself a map of the Good Ol' USA, cut it out, and tape it to your pallet canvas.

Outline your map with some chalk (a pencil works too, but the chalk was easier to see) and remove it.

Grab yourself a paint brush (I used both a regular paint brush--for the middle--and a small foam brush--for the edges) and some paint (I used Rust-oleum's Painter's Touch in White) and have at it.  No need to be OCD with the painting if you plan on distressing it like me.

Wait a half hour or so for the paint to dry (it may or may not take longer than that, depending on the dryness of the wood) and start distressing!  I used 40 grit sandpaper wraped around a block of wood and sanded it by hand, but I'm sure you could use whatever distressing technique you prefer.

And there you have it...MacGyvered Pallet Art.  Simple. As. That.


**Linking this post to (all these sites have really nice buttons that I CANNOT seem to get to work when I try to add them, so for now I just have the list):

• The DIY Showoff
• (Primp)
• Funky Junk Interiors
• The Shabby Nest
• Handy Man, Crafty Woman