EasteR <~~Reusing

Ellie mentioned our Easter centerpiece in this post but I figured that I would expand a little more on the construction of it.

First, the idea came from some Today Show that kept popping up where they were talking about a cheap and easy to decorate for Easter using M&M’s/Mars. It pictured a pretty simple looking box, kindof like this one;

When I saw it, I immediately came up with another use for my leftover fence pickets. That’s right, I still had a few leftover hanging out in the garage (4 to be exact…and this project required me to use 3 of them).

The first thing I did was to take the second-to-longest one and cut both ends straight. It measured approximately 19” long, so I then cut the longest one down to 19”. The shortest one I was saving to cut into two pieces and use as the sides. I wanted it to flare out to the opening up top but not to much, so I experimented by folding up a piece a paper to get the angles that I wanted. I then traced that outline onto the short board. I held my other two pieces up to the board to see how I liked it. Once approved, I cut the short picket into two identical sides.

I had all four sides ready to go…so then I just took out my nail gun (thanks Mom) and popped together all four sides to one another. I had my basic shape and I took it to Ellie to show her what I was referring to when I first pitched the idea to her. She liked it!

I could have used my last remaining picket to create the bottom but I didn’t like the extra thickness that it would have created. I looked around the garage for something else that would be suitable. The solution was, the hardboard backing that most picture frames have. I obtained my piece from a framed mirror that’s in our garage. All I did was outline the shape onto the hardboard, cut out the rectangle, and then stapled it to the wooden frame. It was now ready for paint. I just recently painted my office with Sweet Cream and had some leftover….so that’s what we went with. Here’s it in process and the finished product.