Personalized Periodic Elements Pallet Project

 

I love science and I married a man who loves science. That being said, it should come as no surprise that my children love all things science; especially my son!  He was so excited about the idea of making his name using the Periodic Table.  This Personalized Periodic Elements Pallet Project is such an easy project; we had a great time creating it!

The idea for this pallet project came very accidentally:

Ethan and I were Googling the Periodic Table of Elements to find a certain spelling when I came across the coolest website: LMNTOLOGY.com.  You can type in any word or name and this site will make the word using the elements.  AWESOME!  Some letters do not have an element {E,J, X, Z, etc.} so Lmntology.com created a few fictional elements (they are in purple).  I was ok with a fictional element in Ethan’s name.

Anyway, while Ethan and I were playing with LMNTOLOGY.com, it dawned on me that I could totally do this for my Sister Wars Pallet Project! I started on it right away and had it done by the end of the day. 

I took four pieces of the pallet wood from an unused pallet and sanded them down.

I snagged 12 of metal brackets with screws at the hardware store.  This is how I connected the wood.

Using some leftover Minwax Wood Finish from my table makeover a couple years ago, I stained the wood really dark. 

Once I had the wood the color I wanted, I left it in the sun and went inside to create the lettering. 

Whenever I need a custom stencil I always use vinyl! I created the letters using the program that comes with my electronic craft cutter. I just used a box shape and create the element inside the box; the font is Times New Roman. The finished elements are 12×12 inches.  After I cut the vinyl, I took out the negative.  Basically, I removed whatever I wanted yellow.

Using chalk and a ruler, I made little lines where I needed to line up the vinyl in order for it to be perfectly straight.

I laid the vinyl on the chalk lines and removed the transfer tape. 

It looks pretty cool looking using only the vinyl, but I wanted to be bold and use a bright punch of color.  Bring on the yellow!

I painted a thick layer of the yellow paint over the vinyl stencil.  Before it dried completely, I took all the vinyl off. At this point I thought I had a serious craft fail on my hands.

I expected nice, clean straight lines, but the paint kind of spread through the slats of the wood.  So, I set the wood up and stepped back to look at it and it didn’t look too bad.

With some fine grit sandpaper, I roughed up the yellow a bit to create a more weathered look.  This made the “imperfections” in the paint look less imperfect and more antique-y.  The picture above is the sign fresh out of the vinyl.  The one below shows the sign after I sanded it down.

I sprayed one coat of satin polyurethane over the entire sign. I attached three heavy duty sawtooth hangers to the back of the finished sign and hung it in Ethan’s room.  He totally loves it!

I love that he takes everyone back to his room to show off what his mom made for him…and I also kind of love that I won the first round of Sister Wars! 🙂