Materials and the sequence of the job sit together on this page.
Our first guest of #PalletsAplenty is a DIYer who can paint just about anything! Today she’s here to show us her straightforward painted pallet porch sign that is well fitted for seasonal porch decor (and bonus, you can make it reversible!) — give Jennifer a fabulous Bekob welcome and be sure to subscribe by email or RSS and follow along over on Facebook and Instagram with #palletsaplenty so you won’t miss a single one of the memorable posts we have coming up!
Handmade Painted Pallet Porch Sign walkthrough
by Jennifer Allwood of The Magic Brush
I am Jennifer Allwood, owner of The Magic Brush and hotmess extraordinaire. I encourage women in building their creative businesses and homeowners in creating a home they love. Neither are a well fitted science and I love to find beauty in the imperfect process and the mess.
I am committed to shortcuts on projects, to NOT Handmade’ing every single thing in your home (for the love, some things are just better purchased new!), to non-cheesy crafting and to showing people how all projects have oops in them at some point.
Many “professionals” don’t want to talk about their project oops…. but I decided to write a book about them. My first book “Hotmess: Not Your Typical Handmade Book” is scheduled to release this winter! It’s a book full of striking projects and hotmess moments that will inspire women to craft and paint and decorate with reckless abandon. Messes are welcome. Stayed tuned to my website for book launch information! This pallet project IS in the book with about 34,915 other imperfect projects with half instructions! Can’t wait!
I am literally obsessed with fall decor. I can’t get enough of painted pumpkins and painted pallets and all things fallish! look at this post of my go-to 15 pumpkins that I have painted and decorated. See. I need counseling for my obsession.
And I am also obsessed with using old pallets to make a statement on my front porch (look at this 4th of July p allet I made). Pallet are usually free and they are huge. Bonus!
I’m going to show you how I painted this so you can make one too!
This post does contain affiliate links for your convenience!
Mr Magic (my hubby who has all the muscle in this relationship) picked me up the pallet, removed all the slats from it and re-nailed the slats back onto the pallet frame close together.
Getting the slats close together is what totally makes or breaks a pallet painting project. I know it’s a pain to do, but they just look so, so much prettier when painted. Trust me on this.
If you can find a pallet with all the slats already squished together you know you must be living right. Be grateful because tearing apart a pallet is the worst part of this project. May the force be with you.
I used the orange paint color “Shirley’s Pumpkin” on my pallet. You can find the color HERE and if you use my affiliate coupon code MAGICBRUSH you will get 10% off any paint order! It’s a color that screams fall to me! Yum yum yum!!!!!
So I dry brushed the entire pallet in the orange paint and then let that dry overnight. “Dry brushing” just means I had very little paint on my brush and I didn’t cover the wood 100%… I just kind of let the brush drag over the wood. I talk all about dry brushing and 1863 other painting terms over on my new website, so be sure you check that out!
The next day I glazed over the paint with a little gel stain on a sponge just to tone down the vibrant orange color a little.
Listen, I forgot to take a photo of this step. See, this is the hotmess I spoke of earlier. As a professional blogger and project doer, I am expected to have pictures of every step. My sincerest apologies. Literally, I just dipped a 98 cent car washing sponge in a little low-cost gel stain from Home Depot and rubbed it over the wood. So straightforward. I pinkie swear.
And although I used gel stain, you could use floor stain or a brown glaze or a chocolate wax on this step…. anything brownish in color that will “dirty up” the orange paint. I encourage you to just dig through your painting stash and use what you have. Remember that this is a painting project. We are aiming for progress, not perfection. So if you don’t like how the brown stain or glaze looks, just go back over it with orange. Problem solved. Don’t be intimidated by this step!
After that was dry, I stenciled the pallet with one of my new stencil designs that you can find HERE. Yes, I could have tried to free hand this, but I am not that talented. And I could have bought the letter stencils and tried to lay them all out to do the words but ain’t nobody got time for that. This stencil MAKES the project! Totally worth the money!
I always spray 3M’s 77 adhesive spray on the back of my stencils to make them sticky which helps to eliminate bleeding of the paint underneath. Also tape the stencil on so it doesn’t move!
I used a dark brown chalk type paint for the stenciling and tried to do several thin coats … again to eliminate bleeding. You could use any brown stain or paint for this step.
And viola. I set it on an old cable spool on my front porch, added some pumpkins and called it good. Isn’t that an solid pop of fall color?
And if you’re feeling froggie…. stencil the other side of your pallet for Christmas like I did. Check that project out HERE.
I would guess this entire fall pallet took me 2 hours beginning to end with an hour of the project being my husband reworking the pallet for me. God bless him.
Cost is minimal… the stencil and the chalk type paints = under $50 total
If you love this direct fall pallet and are totally down with projects that aren’t exact in instruction or perfection, look at my ombre fall pallet painted with vivid autumn colors or my cheeky Happy Fall Y’all pallet.
I also have my VERY POPULAR Harvest Barnwood sign that has taken over Pinterest fall boards. You’ll like that one as well!
Thanks for sharing with us, Jennifer! Bekob, be sure to go visit Jennifer to learn a thing or two — like this smart tip for cleaning dried paintbrushes!
And stay tuned because there are more memorable Pallets Aplenty projects coming up, like this straightforward but striking little thing:
