The Third Use. Remember the boxes I made for our wedding? Me either... Here is a link: The Boxes. Those boxes were made with recycled pallets, giving that wood a second life. That wood however, was always intended to have a third life. After our wedding, we had many mementos including beautiful wedding cards that people had given us, a few handmade gifts, and the ropes we had used to "tie the knot." We didn't want to loose track of those items, but had no place to put them, so I devised a project! I thought I could reuse that wood from the boxes and make a Wedding Box. Some of those pallets were made out of oak after all, and it would look quite nice.
My design involved a 12"x12"x6" wood box, with a picture frame hinged top. The picture frame would hold some dried flowers from our arrangements.
The materials were fairly easy to find and included recycled pallet wood, reused screws, some glass from an old frame we found on the side of the road (it was in front of our apartment...one of our neighbors was throwing it out), and some new hinges. We tried to find small used hinges, but craigslist just couldn't come through this time.
The execution was pretty simple. I started by sanding the old pallet wood with some 80 grit sand paper on a belt sander. I more or less squared up the pieces using a joiner and a table saw, and then cut them to size. Next, I assembled them with a small finish nail gun, and joined two square boxes vertically with some pine blocks and screws.
The top was slightly more complicated. I cut a piece of pine pallet wood so it measured 3/4"x1" and cut a 1/4" x 1/4" pocket for the glass to sit in. I then cut the pieces I needed to size at a 45 degree angle so that they would join in a square like a picture frame. The pieces were glued and nailed.
The glass was very tricky. I disassembled the large picture frame that it came in and carefully removed the two foot square piece of glass. It obviously would have to be cut down to fit in my smaller frame. The goal was to cut two 12"x12" pieces to create a sandwich for the flowers. Cutting the glass involved drawing a line with a black marker and placing a ruler along that line. I scored it with a rolling glass cutter, then put a skinny piece of wood under the score and pushed down on either side to snap it. It worked!
Stephanie and I arranged the flowers between the glass, and then I placed it in the frame. The glass is held in with window points, typically used for old single pane windows.
The result is pure magic... Well, maybe that's overstating it, but it does look nice. We recently got some hinges and the box is now complete! The flowers look great and at a glance you can see some of the items inside. Maybe we will open it up on some future anniversary and remember the little things.
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