Christmas Decorating

pallet project inspiration piece

I saw a picture of this pallet project online one day and decided that I just had to make my own. I loved the effect of the lights, and I figured it would be an inexpensive way to make a big statement in my house. If you are interested, I followed the basic directions from the blog "The Kim Six Fix." The full directions can be found here.

My dad had some extra wood pallets in Idaho, so he gave us one to bring home after Thanksgiving. I was super excited to get to work, but I definitely needed Jonathon's help too. He took the pallet apart. Then I sanded each board down and stained them a dark walnut color. Jonathon then used a nail gun to nail the boards tightly together. All of that took a few days, but the really time intensive part was painting the scene. I decided to change it up a bit because I wanted it to showcase Christ and the Nativity rather than the wisemen. I found some silhouettes that I liked online. Then I printed them the appropriate size on some cardstock. I attached the papers to the boards using repositionable spray adhesive. Then I carefully cut out the letters and pictures using an x-acto knife so that it formed a stencil. It was painstaking work, but it saved me money from having to pay someone to cut it out of vinyl. After the stencils were ready, I painted over the papers, and then carefully peeled them away revealing the artwork. Lastly, Jonathon and I worked together to drill holes and position the battery operated Christmas lights where we wanted them. I absolutely love it! If possible, it turned out even better than I imagined in my head. I think I like it even better than the original piece that I was basing it off of. I was so excited to finish it and hang it up in our entryway. It was the perfect touch to our Christmas decor

Here is the finished piece:

So, with my new pallet project as the center piece of my decorating, I set out to make our new house feel like Christmas. Mostly, I just used our old decorations, but I did spend a little bit of money buying a few new things since our house is bigger now and felt a bit empty. Hyrum helped me with the tree, and he was so good and never messed with any of the ornaments. The house felt very festive and happy. I just wish we could keep them up longer to enjoy.