Getting Creative

I decided to help out our pod for the upcoming school fundraiser by getting creative. After attending my son's fundraiser at Webster, I noticed that the items with the most bids seemed to be homemade. I decided to put my woodworking skills to use in the garage. Lately, I've noticed it's been very popular to repurpose old pallet wood. I had access to some old fence pickets, so I decided to make some wall art.

   Yes, I did spend a fair amount of time looking at ideas on Pinterest. I'll admit, It's not the first time I've ever surfed that site. There are some great lesson plans and interventions that teachers post there as well. I decided to create my first project by doing an american flag with the pickets. Here are some of the pictures that helped me along the way.


First, I separated the pickets from the wood railing. I chopped off the pointed ends with my miter saw, and then sanded them nearly bare with a belt sander. Make sure you use a low grit (50) to really get down past the soft wood. I did this to make the contrast between the painted and unpainted wood in the example photos.

 After sanding, I took my finish nailer and tacked some 1x3 boards to the back to hold the pickets in place. I then measured and taped off sections of the boards to make the 13 stripes. I then painted the untaped sections with red paint samples I got from Lowe's, and then measured and taped off the section that I would paint blue. After painting my stripes, I removed the taped sections to expose the bare wood I'd use in place of white stripes. I then painted the blue section. I didn't really have a measurement in mind for the blue section, so I just eyeballed what I thought looked similar to the American flag. Afterwards, I used some foam sanding pads to score the paint to give it that distressed look.

Finally, instead of making a stencil for the stars, I bought some rusted tin stars online and tacked them into place. I think it turned out pretty well. I'm anxious to see how many people bid on it at the auction.