If you’ve ever taken a gander at Pinterest then you’ve no doubt seen the billion and one ways to re-purpose a wooden pallet. Thankfully I’ve got a step-dad that knows what he’s doing when it comes to building and after just showing him a few photos of the vertical herb garden ideas I found, we were able to put together two pallets with shelves for my herbs to grow in. I walked away with a little bit more knowledge, skills on operating a saw, and most importantly.. all ten fingers!
My garden has bright pops of color that makes great contrast with all of the foliage and natural wood, so I kept the same theme running for these pallets with bright paint colors to label each section. You can also do this with wooden planter boxes if you’re not wanted to do a pallet garden. I’ve included a bonus throwback at the end of this tutorial to the VERY FIRST blog post I published using this same painting style.
Supplies:
Shipping pallet(s)*
2″ adhesive vinyl lettering (2-3 packages)
Acrylic paints
1″ foam paint brush
Clear acrylic sealant (optional)
*We used 3 shipping pallets. One we just used for the additional wood and took planks off of to create the bottom portion of the shelves so the soil and plants were supported. We used metal fence posts secured in the ground to keep the pallets upright and then lined each planter box/shelf with weed fabric to keep the soil and roots protected. There are tons of tutorials all over the web on how to build these so that’s why I skipped that portion of the process here.
Adhere vinyl letters to the wood pressing firmly around the edges with your fingernail to ensure the edges are sealed and paint won’t leak underneath. Use a ruler to line up letters evenly. If the wood on the pallets is extremely grooved as you’ll see a few of mine were, you can sand them down so you have a smoother surface to adhere the lettering to. Since it was about 99 degrees out and I was working with full sun beating down on me, I decided I didn’t care about the texture and just wanted to finish them before I melted!
Pour out a little paint into a bowl, dip your brush in, and gently paint over the letters and around them. I used a dabbing motion to get the paint into all of the grooves of the wood and so that there was less chance of the paint bleeding behind the letters. Paint a second coat and allow paint to dry.
Carefully peel off the letters and you’re done! If you’d like to extend the life of your paint a little longer you can also spray on clear acrylic indoor/outdoor sealant to weather-proof them.
As promised.. here’s a throwback to the very first post I published on the blog..
https://www.fairrobinrevival.com/2012/06/11/diy-painted-terracotta-pots/
Things sure have come a long way from a 3 pot herb garden in the windowsill of a city apartment in Portland to a full fledged 25ft by 25ft garden in the country in Iowa! haha
I hope you enjoyed this post! Have you re-purposed pallets before? Comment below or share your DIYs on Instagram and use the #TattooedMartha hashtag!
