Wooden Pallet Sign

I may be a little behind with the wooden pallet trend, but I'm still happy to have made my first pallet sign.

I had seen so many beautiful ideas on Pinterest and knew I wanted to make one, but first to get some pallets, and second to put an image and a quote together...

If you think making a pallet sign is going to be easy, think again - taking the slats off took a lot of strength! Now if I had a saw to cut through the nails, it may have been different, but I was hammering at the wood to force the nails back out.
I was able to obtain a smaller than average pallet, the slats measuring about 28.5" by 3.5". I didn't want as much gap between the slats, so I had to take it all apart and put it back together. I might add that I'm all arms and legs, without much muscle, but I like to be able to do things myself. And, for this one, I didn't ask for any help - and only broke one slat!

After it was apart, I attempted to sand the edges and rough spots. Pallet wood seems to be extra rough and untreated, it's like the wood that isn't good for anything else. I by no means got the wood smooth, but it was somewhat nicer than before sanding.

Next, I nailed the pallet back together, closer, using the same nail holes that were already there; and started drawing on the sun and rays. I used a very large plant pot to get a perfect arc and used the straight edge of the broken slat for the rays.

I used a pencil to draw the lines, thinking that the paint would cover it; however, if you are more of a perfectionist than I am, you will want to be very light with the pencil and/or erase it as you go. If I look very closely at my finished art, I can see the pencil lines.

Before beginning to paint, I spackled over the nails to help hide them and let it dry overnight. I couldn't wait to get up and start painting the next day!

I did two coats of paint on everything, which took a couple days with having to go to my real job and all, but I wanted vibrant color!

Figuring out how to the the letters on took some thinking - I don't trust my freehand and I wanted some different fonts. I had seen a lot blogs on transferring ink to wood by printing the lettering backwards, then wetting it to force the ink back out onto the wood. That was all on unpainted wood and mine had to go over the paint, so I didn't think that would work. I resorted to cutting out and tracing the letters.

A steady hand and patience gets the letter painting done; I definitely had to take breaks because I kept going cross-eyed with the closeup work. Again, I did two coats of paint.
Now I could have been done; the sign was beautiful, bright, and cheery - just what I need for first thing in the morning. I love the 'weathered' look though, so I got the sandpaper out again and roughed up the painted edges and scratched out some of the letters.
Finally, I need to add something to be able to hang it on the wall. I found these hooks and Michael's and thought they would work well - this pallet sign is pretty heavy!

I thought I'd need to get my dad's help to hang it, but he's pretty busy getting ready for the school year to start. I went over to see what I'd need and he gave me some dry wall anchors. I drilled some holes and got it hung all by myself!

I'm so excited to have this hanging in my craft room - "be awesome" - not just about personality, I think it fits for crafting too. I'll have it on the wall right next to my work clothes closet, so every morning when I 'zombie-walk' into the room to get dressed, I'll see the bright colors and have a nice reminder to start my day.

Another thing that I love about this is that it could be a great hand-me-down for my nephew someday!