For this post, I asked my friend and college roommate, Erin, to guest blog.  For our friend Maggie’s engagement party, she made a really cool wood piece with photos on it for their place.  Without further ado….

“Let me begin by saying I am so honored that Kelley asked me to do a guest post about my craft…let me also say that blogging is not my calling, but here goes…

Wood Pallet Wall Art, with pictures

When I heard Maggie and Kyle’s parents were throwing them an engagement party, I decided it was time to find my inner crafter. An idea came to mind that I had done when babysitting my favorite 10 year old, Nell. Every time her parents go out of town, we spend our weekend scouring YouTube for fun crafts. One of them happened to be transferring pictures to wood. This is where the idea for Maggie and Kyle’s board began…

Things you’ll need:

• Matte Gel (medium)
• Mod Podge
• Wood board in the size of your choice
• Paint for the board
• Paintbrushes
• Paint Pens (or you can free hand with a brush)
• One square sheet of ‘fake’ ceiling tile tin (you can find these at Lowe’s, called Fasade Traditional Ceiling Tile Panel)
• Decorative nail heads
• Thin burlap ribbon (or something to ‘frame’ the pictures)
• Pictures of your choice printed to the thinnest possible computer/printer paper, in your desired size

I began by transferring my pictures to the natural wood. Using a pencil, I etched out the spot on the wood where I would like to place them, and covered those spaces in a thick coat of Matte Gel. Be sure it is thoroughly covered and decently thick. Take the pictures you had printed and place them face down on the matte gel and run your hands over to be sure it is molded to the board. Repeat this step if you have multiple pictures as I did. Allow this to dry for several hours — I allowed mine to dry overnight.

In the morning take an old wash rag and drench it in water. Lay the wet wash rag over the paper on the board and rub all over to be sure it is wet. Then take the wash rag and scrub, scrub, scrub. You will see the paper peel off and as you continue to scrub you will see the full picture transferred to the wood.

You may want to run over this a few times as the paper can stick in some places. Once the pictures are pretty clean looking, cover them in mod podge. There are several different types of Mod Podge- for this one I used the antique finish. Hardest step is done! You can see in this photo that the top picture has not yet been scrubbed off.

From there I took the following steps:

Painted the wood board black around the photos and allowed it to dry.

I decided to frame the pictures with two layers of burlap ribbon to create a more finished look.

Found a quote that fit the occasion- for this one I chose Winnie the Pooh 🙂 I then took a white paint pen and wrote the quote on the board.

Since this was an engagement party I wanted to be sure to put their ‘married’ monogram up top- I cut the fake tin ceiling tile to the correct size, painted over it with some white, and nailed it to the board with my decorative nails.

I then took a black paint pen and wrote their monogram on the tin once the white paint had dried.

At the bottom of the board I nailed another piece of tin down on top of some burlap with their wedding date written on it.  To finish it off I nailed the decorative nails into all four corners of the pictures.

Voila! Finally done! We used the board for display at the engagement party, and hopefully it will be something Maggie and Kyle can keep for years to come!

You can do this in all sizes and for so many different crafts. Here is the one I did while babysitting….  My little girl is now displayed proudly at her Gigi and Papa’s :)”

I love the personalized wall art Erin did and have already pinned a few different ways I can do this with my pictures, and as gifts!