Rustic Wooden Pallet Picture Frames

The wall above my sofa in my living room has been empty since the day we moved into this house. I claimed it was because I was waiting to find the perfect piece of art to fill such a large space but really I knew I wanted to build something for up there…but I didn’t know exactly what that something would be.

Fast forward a year (yes…I know. That’s a long time to have a huge blank space in your living room. My husband told me so many, many times!) and I stumbled across this post from Sweet Georgia Sweet on Facebook. I was instantly in love with the idea of pallet frames, and equally excited about finding a project I could make myself. I’m determined to literally DIY as much of our house as I can.
Give me a weekend snowed in (Thank you winter storm Jonas!), and I’ll give you pallet picture frames!

The full how-to is below!

Enjoy,

Nikki, In Stitches

Materials:

• Raw pine wood wall planks (Don’t let the name of these scare you! They are simply really thin tongue and groove pine planks you would use to create a wainscoting look in your house. You can buy them in long 8′ planks, but those may be hard for you to not only transport but cut down to size by yourself. I actually found mine in a twelve pack of planks that were 32″ long…MUCH easier to handle!)
• Two 1/4″ thick plywood squares, one cut to be 20″ and the other 17″
• 1″ wood screws
• 14″ canvas (This was a custom size I ordered from EasyCanvasPrints.com. I am NOT an affiliate for them, I just found them…and their 60% off coupon when you sign up for their email list!…and thought it was a great deal!)
• Nail for hanging canvas
• Mounting hangers for the back of your pallet

Equipment:

For this project I used both a chop saw and a table saw, as well as a drill and hammer. Please don’t let that last sentence scare you. You can absolutely ask your local hardware store to cut your lumber for you, just go prepared. Have your specs exactly mapped out so you can tell them precisely  how to cut each piece!

NOTE: In the directions below, I’ll work with the exact dimensions I used. You can absolutely adjust the size of these to be whatever works for your space! If you need help scaling the project, just ask!

Directions:

•  Make your “pallet.”
  The pallet construction is VERY basic. I used nine vertical planks going across, and two horizontal cross bars behind. You can see in the picture below exactly how I have them put together…even where I screwed them together. I did cut my planks down a bit. They started at 32″ and I cut them down to 30″. (Why 30″ you ask? Because with nine planks across that gave me a square!) I also trimmed off the outside edge of the right most plank and the left most plank. Remember, these are “tongue and groove” planks so they do not have flat finished edges. I simple ran these two through my table saw to give them a nice flat clean edge! If you don’t mind the tongue and groove showing on the sides, then feel free to skip that part!

• Stain your “pallet.”
  You can paint or stain your pallet however you would like. I used my favorite tea, vinegar, and steel wool trick that I talked about last week. You can find the full how-to and all of my tips for getting the perfect results here!

• Paint your largest (20″) plywood square and screw it into place in the center of your pallet.
  My 1″ screws came through the pallet in the back, but I didn’t mind. If you want a more finished back of your project, you can switch here to a shorter screw. Just be sure when you screw in into place the screws are placed about 2.5″ in from all the edges. This will ensure they will be covered by the next layer of plywood!

• Paint your last plywood square (17″) and screw it into place in the center of your pallet.
  Again, just be sure your screws are about 2.5″ in from all the edges so that your canvas will cover them!

• Place a nail in your top most layer to hang your canvas from.
  Do a little prep work and measuring here. You want to be sure your canvas is centered. Measure to the center of your canvas, and also how far down the hanger is on the back. Adjust your nail placement accordingly!

• Mount your finished pallet to the wall and then hang your canvas from the center! The nice things about these is that as your kiddos grow older, it’s so easy to swap out the canvases!!

PS…The “graphics” for today’s post were actually created in my Silhouette Studio software. Yup, like I’ve said so many times…you really can do so much more than just cut paper and vinyl with your Silhouette CAMEO or Portrait! If you’d like to push your Silhouette crafting to new levels, stop by and take a peek at the Crafting With Your Silhouette monthly program. I’d love to see you join us in class! Click here for more details!