Wooden Flower Box

Whew, it's a race against the weather today! It's been sunny for so long (there's a ban on campfires), and finally this afternoon it's going to rain- for the next 4 days at least. So, I wanted to take the tent down, since I still haven't water-proofed it, and I wanted to hang out a load of towels to dry. Now, it's all done!

DS picked some dandelion greens for my Green Smoothie this morning!

Now, onto the project. Last year, I made a wooden flower box for my MIL for Mother's Day. DS and DD helped. I wish I had a better picture!  I was inspired by something I think I found on Etsy, but now I can't find it.

The "Before" was a bunch of old 1x6 boards I had leftover from something.  I drew out a pattern on newspaper, then cut all the pieces out using the jigsaw. Sometimes, I think I'd like a scroll saw, but I'm not sure it'd be worth it...  Anyway, I tried to keep the pieces on the long board as long as possible. Then when the piece got cut off, I used a clamp to hold the wood so I could finish up the last little cuts.

You can see below, the 3D-ness of it. (and the firepit and bricks which I finally moved!)  

 

Here's the other side. You'll notice that the box isn't a 1x6, but a 2x6.  I tried that out, but it seemed to bulky.

 So, I replaced it with a 1x6.

 After getting it all situated, it was pretty straight forward. Just a lot of waiting... Here's what I did:

1. Rough Sand
2. Find Sand
3. Prime
4.  Let dry overnight...
5. First coat paint on top and sides (Kids helped!)
6. Let dry couple hours...
7. First coat on back
8. Let dry overnight...
9. Second coat on back
10. Dry thru the day....
11. Second coat on front and sides
12. Dry overnight....
13. Glue
14. Let dry....

We used paint we had around the house.  The green is the color we used for the back of the kitchen island.  The little "lilac" flower in the middle is the light purple that's DD's accent color in her room.  We mixed the brick color for the box from red and brown acrylic craft paint.  I think the red for the tulips and yellow for the sunflower and bees and the were also craft paint. We used chalkboard paint for the bees. And the white was trim paint. 

I had to glue in stages, so that took a bit of time also. I don't have proper clamps, so I'd glue one layer and put books and paint cans on top to let it dry. 

The little bees have antennae that I made with wire. I drilled a tiny hole in the bee's head and stuck the wires in with some glue on them.

The box lasted well thru the summer, but during the winter it all fell apart. :-(

Even though I used Outdoor Wood Glue! I guess it needs to be brought in during the winter.

I'm gluing it back together now, 

(My uploads aren't working. It seems everytime I go to add pictures from my phone, I keep losing pictures!  Now, I only see the ones older than Dec and they seem to go way back to 2011!  Aaagghh! I'll add picture later) Update: my pics are working again!

so hopefully it will be as good as new! :-)