Reclaimed Wood Pumpkins

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Over the past few months, it has been raining reclaimed wood into our splintered hands!  Brent has actually forbidden me from accepting any more free lumber because we're running out of places to store it.  Currently, we have three different types of hardwood flooring - one will be used as flooring in our kitchen, the other two types of flooring will become woodworking projects.  There isn't enough of either of these types of flooring to actually lay down in a room - but I just couldn't watch it go into a dumpster - so instead we drug it home.  Here's a small sampling of one type of the flooring.

So now I have the arduous problem of figuring out what to make out of this wood.  The last thing I want to do is comb through Pinterest (that's heavy sarcasm, folks) searching and waiting for an idea to strike me.  And then it happened.  This picture on Pinterest (how many times has that sentence been used??!!), filled my computer screen and I HAD TO MAKE IT.  Like.  Now.

Just wait until you see what this little pile of hardwood flooring becomes!

To create these pumpkins, I mostly followed the instructions from the Pinterest link.  I started by sketching out the three sizes of pumpkins on a piece particle board and cut them out with a jig saw.

Then I chose the hottest, most humid day of summer to sit on the patio and pull nails out of my flooring boards.  I may have also pulled some swear words out of my pocket, because those babies did NOT want to come out very easily.

After I'd accumulated a decent pile of nail-free wood, I laid down one of my pumpkin templates and roughly cut pieces of flooring to the right length.  This is what my top view looked like.

Here's what you seen when you flip it over.  Once all of the pieces were aligned and joined together, and working with it upside down as shown below, Brent used his nailer to put one inch nails through the particle board.  At this point, the boards are attached to the pumpkin template.

 Using a jig saw, we followed the particle board template and cut away the excess wood.

 After lots of sanding with my orbital sander and 80 grit sand paper, it was time to start finishing them.

 One of them got a coat of walnut stain...

 The large one got a coat of Seagull Gray milk paint followed by a coat of Wythe Blue in a semi-gloss finish.

The smallest pumpkin started with a coat of Seagull Gray milk paint and then both the small and largest pumpkin were given a coat of VanDyke Brown glaze.

All three pumpkins were finished with Exterior Spar Urethane varnish on both the front and back, although with that particle board backer, I wouldn't recommend leaving these pumpkins out in the elements.  Particle board will swell and expand when exposed to water, so if you want something that will work well outdoors, you'll have to find a material that is more resilient to moisture.  These should do ok on a covered porch, if you're lucky enough to have one!

To make sure the pumpkin stayed upright, we cut this piece of angled wood and screwed it to the back.

The sticks came from our front yard and were attached with a few one inch brad nails.

Staging projects isn't exactly my strong point, so here are a ton of pics of me doing the best I could...

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Wood Block Pumpkins

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Hopefully everyone had a great Labor Day weekend!  Three days off in a row never ever get old in my book!  I know that we are supposed to use Labor Day as a time to refresh and relax, so we did just that - except our version of relaxing is a little more unconventional.  Building and creating is our family's outlet for relieving stress...so when we woke up at 6:30am on Monday, Sept. 1st, the kids and I had a list of stuff that we wanted to make together!

The first thing we were going to make was, say it with me here, "this think I saw on Pinterest!"  Adorable little pumpkins made out of 4x4 posts!  Except we didn't have any 4x4 blocks, we only had some reclaimed lumber that is more like 3"x2.5" but with tons of texture.  Better in my book!  And free...the goal of most of our projects is to build them out of what we happen to have laying around.

I cut them at different heights until they looked just right.  Then we sanded everything really well with a sanding block and an orbital sander.

Emma painted the large and the small with one coat of antique white.  Since we were going to be sanding them after painting, we didn't bother using any primer first.  Owen painted the middle sized block orange.

After the paint had dried, we taped off our patterns on the blocks.  For the polka dots, we used the only circles we had - smiley face stickers.  The chevron pattern was a little more frustrating because we only had the wide blue painters tape.  I didn't want to go all the way to the hardware store for a silly role of tape so I cut the wider tape into skinny strips.  Did it turn out perfect?  Nope - but Emma kept reminding me that we weren't going for perfect.  Smart girl.

With our tape and stickers securely in place, we painted each block in the opposite color of the first coat.  After that coat of paint dried, we peeled off the tape and stickers and sanded the blocks again with the sanding block.

 And of course, like everything else in our house, they then got a coat of brown glaze.  This was Emma's first time glazing anything and she LOVED it!

For the little stem tops, we just happened to have an extra dowel laying around from a closet makeover.  After I put a quick coat of American Walnut stain on them, Brent attached them by shooting a few 2" nails right down through the top of it and into the wood block.

To round out the remainder of our Labor Day, we painted this little picture for my mom...

And then took these candle holders we found in the basement...

gave them a couple coats of Wythe Blue...

and a coat of glaze so that they will match the rest of our home decor.

Anyone else work on anything over the long weekend? If you like this project, follow us on Facebook to see what else we're up to!

A Centerpiece for Mama (and me)

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This past Saturday, Brent and I packed up the fam and headed to Omaha.  Two things were on our agenda - to squeeze in a ton of quality time with our good friends that live there and to partake in a previously unbeknownst event called Junkstock.

Junkstock is not the kind of place you take most men or children.  I say "most men" because Brent would've enjoyed about 30% of it.  The majority of men would've found it to be extreme punishment.  My brain was going bananas there - everywhere you look is one great idea after another.  It's kind of like these vendors went in and cleaned out old barns, schools and estates and either sold the item as is or re-purposed it for something else.  Tons of refinished painted furniture, old cabinets, windows, mason jars and milk crates.  At least 3 times, I stammered "this is the best thing that has ever happened to me."  Plus, it was held on a farm and in the middle of a field.

You can imagine my mind was reeling with ideas of things I wanted to make.  I spent the majority of our time in church the following day furiously scribbling out ideas so I couldn't forget them.  As soon as we got home from church, I knew exactly what I wanted to build first.  On the way out of Omaha, we stopped at one of my favorite stores to browse around and I saw this.  Ahhh...old crate, mason jars and candles.  Yes, please!  But I didn't have a crate.  Guess I will build one!  And since I was going to build one, I figured that I might as well build a second one for my mom.

Hanging out in my junk pile was this piece leftover from our workshop construction.  I used a palm sander to get a little of the paint off but I wanted it to look a little rustic, so I left a little on there.

My mom's centerpiece was most likely going to end up on her fancy dining table, so I wanted to be sure there were no screws through the bottom that would potentially scratch it.  I also don't like it when you can see screws through the front, which means this little project needed to be assembled with the good ol' Kreg Jig.

First, clamp it to your table.

I always slip a piece of scrap in to get my adjustments correct.  The piece I am twisting with my fingers needs to be adjusted to accommodate the thickness of wood you are using.  

Put the special Kreg Jig bit in your cordless drill.

Clamp that back handle towards you to secure your piece and drill away.

The goal here is to make sure you haven't drilled to deep and the pilot hole goes through the bottom.  This one looks like a success!

Assembly time.  I put the sides on first.

Brent cut a thin piece of plywood to fit in the bottom and used the nail gun to tack it on.

I used this leftover stain from our basement to add a little color to the box.

All done and ready to take to my mom's house!

I picked up a few scented candles and with the help of my talented sister-in-law, we took some of my mom's old fall decorations and used them to adorn the box.

Now it was my turn!  I wanted mine to look a little rougher and a tiny bit darker so it would contrast with my buffet.  So I first did a coat of turquoise glaze to fill in all of the scratches and holes.  Simply mix any color paint with clear glaze and it will extend the drying time, giving you extra time to rub the glaze into the cracks and then wipe the excess off.

In this picture, I just painted a coat of the glaze on - it does not need to be perfect!

Then rub the glaze into the deeper spots with a dry cloth and wipe off as much excess as you wish.  Usually I also finish up by wiping it down with a damp cloth - but it really depends on your preference.

On top of the turquoise glaze, I applied a coat of Martha Stewart Metallic Coffee Glaze to give it little more depth.  This stuff also has the tiniest amount of sparkle to it!  I've had this tiny little jar for a few years and have used it on dozens of projects.  It stretches really far and I still have 3/4 of the jar left!

Owen and I took a little trip to the craft store to get some floral filler and tiny pumpkins and pinecones.  And here is our finished project...

I filled these vases with my extra pinecones and pumpkins.

I am excited to change out the box with different colored candles and accents as we move into different seasons.  For Christmas, I will slip some pine or spruce cuttings in there, maybe flocked, maybe not.  A few holly berries would be nice paired with the hurricane vases filled with sparkly christmas tree balls.  A yellow and coral flower arrangement in there for spring would be cute, too.

One project down, at least 10 more to go!  My vision for our workshop is slowly becoming more clear. Imagine a day where a bunch of us girls can decide on something we'd all like to make, we can gather up in the workshop and all build our own, with Brent there to help as needed.  Maybe some drinks, maybe some food.  And at the end of the day, everyone goes home with their creation!  Some day...