DIY: Pallet Texas Flag

I think it's hilarious that pallets are all the Pinterest rage these days. Growing up half my life on a freight dock and the other half in a hangar, pallets were EVERYWHERE. Seriously they were more like a pest than DIY material. I now see how versatile these things can be, but I can't believe some people PAY for the things, even before they have been repurposed. Seriously - if you need some pallets, just go drive around in a more industrial part of town. More than likely, there are plenty lying around and if you ask nice, I bet folks would be more than happy to let you to haul off a few.

This little project was so so so easy. I just slapped on some paint I had on hand. I didn't measure anything. I am NOT a perfectionist whatsoever, especially when it comes to projects, so everything I do ends up rustic looking because I like it rough around the edges. I used interior paint in white, a cherry red and a deep turquoise. I liked how the turquoise "girled" it up a bit, but if I had navy or royal blue on hand, I probably would have used that instead.

As you can see, these pallets are not the standard size ones you find lying around which are normally more square in shape, maybe a little longer on one side to make it barely a rectangle. The vertical one on the left actually came to our house when we had some parts delivered and it was already that size. The White and Red part was a regular-sized pallet that my dad had that we trimmed I think two slats off of to make it line up with the blue. I think you could play around with whatever pallets you have and just do whatever is easiest. Don't think too hard - don't do math. That's my DIY motto.

Vintage 7-Up cooler stolen gifted from the neighbors. Jalepeno and tomato plants in homemade dollar store planters and the lovely Fran the Flamingo from Coyote Candle Co.

 You could use any kind of paint, even craft paint would work. If you want to seal it (overachiever), it would probably last longer in the elements. Me? I think the more wear it gets, the better. The star was just an old rustic metal thing we happened to have that I hung on with just a nail. I shot it with the same white paint as well, however I may eventually have to go over it with some Rustoleum to keep it from rusting. Or maybe I'll just like the rusty look.

The actual cutting and painting part of this project took a solid ten minutes. Easy peasy lemon squeezey. Now for the hanging... if my roommate Emily and I had been left to our own devices, it would have taken around 10 minutes, been super rigged, but probably worked good enough for us. BUT, we made the mistake of letting boys be involved, so suddenly we had five ameteur engineers who just knew they could get this thing hung better than us. And about two hours later, it was done.

Just a little visit to the hardware store for some chain and hooks and this bad boy was flying pretty. I love how it adds a little something extra to the backyard. It would be even easier to hang on a fence or just lean on the corner of a patio or something. So fun, practically free (minus about $5 on hardware that I deemed completely unnecessary) and about a 20 minute project (if boys don't step in and ruin the fun ;).