Pallet Wood Antiqued Wooden Home Sign

Unfinished wooden pallet boards before aging process

First step process effects (tea)

2nd step vinegar & steel wool solution

Frame from the same pallet

After about 30 minutes

Finished sign (actually I went back and added a decal to the bottom left for an added touch)

Good Morning to you all!! Welcome back to ReDo Me! Today I decided to share the project I did for an upcoming silent auction for our local American Legion. I got the idea from a project posted on www.Hometalk.com . This project took about three days to finish in total due to my hectic work schedule and home life. I have a preteen and hubby, and you know how that can get LOL!
Any who, back to the task at hand. I got the pallet wood from a friend who found them at the local newspaper. I had originally wanted full pallets but I wasn't about to turn down free untouched wood!!! These were only partial pallets. The night before I started my project, I got out the steel wool and tore it up a bit and put it in a coffee can. Next I poured the vinegar over the steel wool and put the lid on and left it alone. The vinegar and steel wool takes 24 hours to work its magic.
When I felt the solution was ready to work with I set out to get down to the basement and get to work. I had been itching to get this project started and couldn't wait to start. I picked out a frame and three boards that would fit nicely into the frame. I didn't want them to fit snugly into place because I wanted it to look more like an old fence or old barn wood. I brushed the tea on with a small paint brush that I had picked up for $1.00 at the local Walmart. I didn't need anything fancy for this project so I went with the good ole cheapy. As you can see from the pictures posted above, the tea made a nice stain effect bringing the color out in the wood. I was almost tempted to stop there because I liked the color!!
I waited about 30 minutes for the tea to soak into the wood nicely, then followed up with the vinegar solution. I brushed it right on top of the tea and stepped back and waited to see what would happen. Within 30 more minutes you could started to see the aging process start!! I was fascinated watching this nice new piece of wood age before my eyes! I wanted to make sure the process took, so I did a second coat of both tea and vinegar for good measure.
I left the wood to dry over night and when I came back I had beautiful aged wood boards to work with. The next step was to cut the frame down to the right size. Easily enough done by cutting it in half. The only problem is that I don't have a power saw. I had to use a had saw. I had forgotten how labor intensive this could be seeing as I hadn't used the hand saw since 8th grade shop class and that was many, many, many years ago!! But I work with what I have, and having to use manual tools just made the whole thing more satisfying since, I really had to work for this project. I can literally say blood and sweat went into this one (no tears here except maybe ones of joy when it sells and the proceeds go to a good cause).
Next, I nailed the boards into place, yes with a real hammer, not a nail gun, once again manual labor the whole nine yards here. However, I didn't take the traditional route with the placement and making the nails uniform. I nailed them here and there along the wood enough so that the boards were firmly in place. Again, I repeat I did this for the rustic look, not because I don't know how to properly nail boards in place. Every detail in a project not matter how minor it maybe, is important!!
After the sign was pieced together and I had the look I wanted. I placed some decals on that had a much nicer saying... HOWEVER, the decals refused to stay in place. I was immediately frustrated. So I decided that it would be best to just break out the stencils and paint at least one saying onto the wood planks. The paint dried pretty quick. Next step, I got out my little hand sander and went over the top of the entire project with a fine 120 grit sand paper. This step aged out the black paint and gave me a nice smooth finish on the sign.
 I was pleased with the way the sign had come out but I felt that something was still missing.
I went to a site called Thegraphicsfairy.com and found a nice little graphic that would fit perfectly in the bottom left hand corner:

wreath

To get this onto the wood, I printed the graphic off on some wax paper. I had to wet the wood a little bit to get the graphic to be a little darker on the wood. I transferred it to the wood by placing the fresh printed page directly to the wood and held it firmly in place then used a spoon to rub the ink into the wood. There was no need to distress the decal because it already had the aged look once it was on the wood.

I unfortunately forgot to get a picture of this as I needed to get it to the Legion quickly for the auction.

This project in total only cost me, about $10.00. I will update you all later as to how much the sign was auctioned off for. I hope you like this project and please feel free to leave comments below!!

Happy Tuesday!!

Angel...