DIY Vintage Crate

I'm always looking for old crates. They could be apple crates, liquor crates, milk crates etc. I've been on a mission for a while to find one that I could stencil on. My impatience grew, so off to Michael's Crafts I went. They usually always have great coupons.

yay me!

 I stumbled upon this little guy! He was $12.00 and I had a 40% off coupon!!!

First, I sanded the entire unfinished piece down. I usually do this to pieces just to remove all the loose jagged edges.

Next, I stained the crate. I used Minwax stain in English Chestnut. This is a great stain to get that distressed look on furniture also. Just paint the furniture the color you want, sand off some of the edges and then push the stain all over the piece with a rag and wipe off. With this piece I used a small brush to get in to the cracks and a rag to lightly stain the wood. *Note- You do not need to saturate the rag, you want a very light coating, it will darken as it sits.  After it was dry I sanded it again lightly to remove any of the sheen that was still visible.

For the final touches, I bought 1 1/2 inch stencils from Michael's Crafts. They have all kinds of sizes and fonts to your preference. I laid them on the front of the crate and traced out our last name with a pencil. I then traced the letter's with a sharpie. After about ten minutes, I sanded the sharpie-d letters. This gave it a nice vintage look!!

My plan was to put the cable box in this little guy and have the sensor peek out. I hate the look of the cable box !  But, unfortunately the cable box is about a 1/2 in too big (project for the hubs-make custom crate). 

The items you need are listed below, and if you have any questions, ask away!!! 

Good luck,

Jess

Items needed

-Unfinished wooden crate

-fine grit sandpaper

-minwax stain (your color preference)* the table in the pic that the crate is on is Minwax gray.

-cheap disposable 2" brush

-rag

-stencils

-pencil

-sharpie

-steady hand