Pallet projects have become popular for a plethora of reasons in recent years. So much so that the idea of making mini pallets was floated around, and I took it upon myself to come up with a concise and easy to follow tutorial for making one.
The project comes out at just 8” by 10”, perfect for the wall, mantel or windowsill.
You will need:
- Large craft (or popsicle) sticks
- A blank 8” by 10” canvas
- Various colored craft paints
- Sandpaper or a sanding block
- Paint brush
- Paper towels
- Stencils for letters
- Craft glue (PVA)
- Trim the rounded ends off each craft stick and place them in position on the canvas, no glue is necessary yet as you’re only checking how many to use.
- Continue placing craft sticks until the canvas is covered. Now cut the sticks into different sized pieces, cutting some in half and others into thirds. There’s no need to be precise here, you’re simply recreating the look of a pallet.
- Once you’ve positioned all your pieces and trimmed them to fit, carefully arrange the pieces on the floor in the same order to make it easy to reassemble. Now paint the canvas the same (or a similar color) as the sticks will be painted, this will emphasize the art later. Depending on the color you paint the canvas it may need two coats.
- Now glue the popsicle sticks to the canvas being mindful to put them back in the same order, make sure to run the glue down the center of the sticks and be a little sparing so as to not have glue leaking through any gaps.
- Once everything is glued down, give them time to dry.
For the rest of the project I will refer to the craft stick structure as the “pallet”.
- Paint two coats onto the pallet using the paint you’ve decided as your chosen art, I went with a reddish brown on the canvas and a lighter brown on the pallet. Let everything dry.
- Using a fine sandpaper lightly sand the face of the pallet to remove some of the paint and prepare it for more.
- Now decide which other colors you will use to add some highlights or details to your pallet, I went with orange and yellow. Dry brush minimal amounts to the pallet.
Here you can have a little fun, choose a contrasting colored paint and dry brush onto a majority of the pallet, then immediately wipe it off with a paper towel. I went with turquoise to contrast my reds.
You can do the same thing (brushing paint on and wiping off) with several other colors to give some character to the pallet. Make sure to let it dry completely each time otherwise it will all blur together.
You can keep repeating this process, brushing on different colors and wiping them off until you’re happy with the result. This is truly an experimental stage so have fun.
You can also find inspiration online, mine was a redwood pallet which had been used for many years in various industries.
- Now sand the pallet down with a slightly coarser grain of sandpaper, this will blend all the colors further and give an aged rustic look. Wipe down the pallet with a soft cloth or paper towel to remove and dust. From here you can add more color or decide that it’s enough.
- Finally for the words you can use letter stencils or make letter cut outs using a material. I used a simple stencil of my favorite font. With the stencil simply use a larger brush or even a sponge to paint the letters, do so carefully and lightly so you can paint more precisely without the stencil in the way. Let dry.
- Sand the pallet one more time, including the words. Wipe away any dust
- Add any decorations, small paper flowers can be good or anything really.
- It’s important to attach some felt or another thick material to the back so that it doesn’t damage your wall or mantel over time. Attach it using your craft glue.
Voila you have your very own mini pallet art to present!
Please feel free to share your own, and any things you experienced while making this project!