Pallet pumpkin

It look so easy on Pinterest, doesn't it? You just take a pallet, use a jigsaw to cut it apart, and turn it into a pumpkin for your front porch. "It's so easy," they say. "Anyone can do it." If so, then I should be able to do it. And I certainly have pallets. 

So I pulled out my Reciprocating saw, and started cutting. I realized very quickly that it made good work of the wood, but whoever said it would cut right through nails must of had a different brand of saw.

I finally gave up on cutting through the nose, and just cut around the nails. Then I had a much more manageable section of pallet with which to work. So I took it over to my sawhorse.

I sketched out a pumpkin shaped using a pencil on the wood, then got out my jigsaw and began to try and cut out that outline. It works really well, except for when it got to the hall thicker cross pieces. For that, I had to get out my circular saw. By then, I had every saw I owned sitting on my sawhorse table for use.

Once you get it cut out, you really are pretty much done. That is the hard part. From there it was just spraying it with several coats of orange spray paint.

Oh, after gluing up the piece that did not have an anchor because I cut the nails in the wrong place.

When I first painted it, the kid said it needed a longer stem, so I went back and cut more off the top so that it would have a more pronounced stem.

Then I went back over the stem section with some green paint, let everything dry, and voilà! A reusable pumpkin for my front porch.

Oh! Somewhere during all of this, I did sand everything thoroughly. At any rate, it's done and it was basically free, and I'm very happy with it. 

I will probably try and make larger versions or smaller versions for subsequent years so that I can have a grouping. But this year I'm calling it good enough.

Cost: free, materials on hand. 

Time: one afternoon

Outcome: SUCCESS!!

Now go make-do something of your own!