{barnwood boxes from chalkboard blue}

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Happy Friday!  We are still trying to recover from Halloween at our house, so this weekend is a very welcome sight, indeed. I think it should be a new rule that Halloween is on Friday–or at least we have no school the next day. :)

I’m really excited to introduce you to a new contributor on Simply Kierste…her name is Michelle, she blogs over at Chalkboard Blue, and she’s super talented!  She will be here the first Friday of every month to share fun projects and ideas, and I’m so looking forward to having her here.  So…give her a big welcome, and take a look at her darling barnwood boxes!

 …..

 Hi!  My name is Michelle and I’m from Chalkboard Blue!  I’m excited to be contributing to Simply Kierste today!  Stop by my Blog for some ideas on how to Build, Decorate & Create!

 I wanted to share with you an idea of how to build some Barnwood Boxes out of Cedar fencing and how you can use your boxes for Seasonal Decoration– how to transition them from Fall to Christmas, and as an every day part of your Decor.

 I know there is such a craze for Barnwood.  I love it myself, and I wanted to incorporate it into my home. I designed these boxes and built them out of cedar fencing.  I then used a combination of paint and stain to make them look weathered. They were inexpensive and pretty easy to build.  You can use items you may have around your home to fill them or even items you may find outside too!  (I did!)

I can’t wait to show you some other ideas I came up with for these!

Once Fall is over and its time to move onto Christmas, then you can fill them with your Christmas Decor goodies too!

***Ok so here is where I let the fun begin.   I decided to stencil some numbers with paint on the boxes.  You can display with all or just some of your numbers showing.

Now you could also cut some vinyl and letter the boxes too.  Simply turn the numbers back around.  The great thing about vinyl is, you can peel it off when you are done.

 JOY…

This one is one of my favorites,  I did the word Peace out of vinyl…

 If you don’t want words,  but like the idea of the numbers, then you can use only some of your numbers.  Simply turn around the box with the “2” on it and the box with the “5” on it, to represent Dec. 25th for Christmas…

(You could also fill them for Halloween and have only the “3” and the “1” show also!) Now once your seasons are over and you just want to use your boxes for other uses, you can!  You can use your boxes all together or even split them up!  The possibilities are endless!

  I wanted to use mine for everyday items, even wanted to put them in a place that inspires me.  I thought, what if you used these boxes in a place where you create!

 just one number showing…

Create…

I filled this box with some items that are meaningful to me…  I’m partial to the number 5 because of my kids, I found some old style flash cards and put the Letter R showing for my husband Ryan’s name (also my initial is just a hair above his, aww).  A picture of some old Mailboxes I took at our family’s little Island home in Washington, some cute blue washi tape and twine to inspire me to wrap up gifts to give others and the dominoes to represent our 5 kids.  The 3 showing for the girls and a 2 showing for the boys. Chevron stamp for fun!

I also thought of the rulers, because I love to build and they represent building and creating to me…

Flowers because I love to garden.  I love these papers printed with fun music notes and book paper and map paper, they just inspire me to create…

Here is how I built my boxes: (I have all of the dimensions of all of the boxes at the end of this post.)

Materials:

3 planks of cedar fencing

Brad nails that are 7/8 in. long

White paint I had on hand

Minwax stain.  (I used 3 kinds, Gel stain in color: Aged Oak)

small cans of stain: colors: special walnut and dark walnut

Brad nailer

Miter saw

clamps

palm sander

sponge brush for painting

rag for staining

Directions:

I took only one board and ripped it on the table saw to 4 inches wide.

 I used this 4 inch board to make two different boxes. For each box, cut 2 boards for front and back. Note: One will be your front and one will be your back.

2 cut for the sides 1 cut for the bottom

Fit your pieces together. I fit the side pieces inside the front and back pieces so no seams show on the front or back.  Once they were placed together, I figured the bottom measurement and cut and fit it.

 

Clamped and Nailed on with the brad nailer on the corners, sides and around the bottoms.   There the box is built!  I built all of these in one afternoon.  They really weren’t too bad.

 

Here they are before I painted them…

 

I painted them white.  Inside and out and the bottom, because you never know when you will want to flip them over for a different height..

Next, I used my palm sander and sanded them down quite a bit.  So only some of the paint shows through and the ridges in the wood show up… I sanded off more of some boxes than others too!

Then did a series of stain applications, I used the gel stain, the special walnut color and then the dark walnut color.  Once you have that applied, you can sand them down a little more to give them a more rough look or put more stain, its up to you!

To make my stencils, I cut them using my Silhouette Cameo on some Contact paper.  Placed them on the boxes, painted in the stencil and removed the contact paper…

Here they are with all the numbers:

Here are all the dimensions I used for each of my boxes.  I will give you the dimensions corresponding to the numbers on the boxes in the above picture:

Remember I cut the one board 4 inches right?  That board was used for the box with the number 4 on it and the box with the number 2 on it.  ( all dimensions are in inches)

Cut two of each:

-Front/Back (1 for front board and 1 for back board)

-Sides

Cut one of:

Bottom

No. 4’s dimensions are:                   No. 2’s dimensions are:

Front/Back:  4 wide x 7 tall              Front/Back: 4 tall x 10 wide

Sides: 2 1/2 wide by 7 tall                Sides: 3 wide x 4 tall

Bottom: 2 3/4 x 2 1/2                       Bottom: 3 wide x 8 3/4 long

No. 5 Dimensions are:                  No. 1’s dimensions are:

Front/Back: 5 3/8 wide x 5 tall    Front/Back: 4 3/4 wide x 7 3/4tall

Sides: 3 3/4 wide x 5 tall              Sides: 3 3/4 wide x 7 3/4 tall

Bottom: 3 3/4 x 4 1/8                   Bottom: 3 1/2 x 3 3/4

No. 3’s Dimensions are:

Front/Back: 4 3/4 wide x 6 tall

Sides: 3 1/4 wide x 6 tall

Bottom: 3 5/8 x 3 1/4

Note: vinyl does not like to stick to a stained surface, so it takes a little bit of work to get your vinyl to adhere, but still works!

I hope I have inspired you to create some fun Barnwood boxes.

If you would like to see more of the projects I have built, such as our Fireplace or our Garage Lockers, you can see them  by visiting my blog.  www.Chalkboardblue.com under things I’ve Built 

With Much Love & Gratitude,

 

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