On Saturday, we hosted a family kitchen shower for Matt’s cousin, Seth, and his fiance, Jennifer.  It was a lot of fun to celebrate this sweet couple!  I love family gatherings…and even hosting them!  Crazy I know!  There is something so special about celebrating life!  In preparation for shower, Matt and I made a memo board to be used as an activity, and it ultimately was part of our shower present.

I finally created something with a wood pallet!!  I am thrilled!!  I have been dying to get my hands on a project with pallet wood for probably a year now!  Here is our project…

The first step was prying four boards off of this pallet which I saved from my neighbor’s trash.  Ummmm let’s just say that was hard work, and my brother happened to see me struggling with it.  He may or may not have saved me from some cursing and blisters by completing this first task for me.  Thanks Tony! 🙂

Next, I measured where I wanted the boards to be cut and we cut them!

My amazing husband than started by gluing the boards together and reinforcing them with some dowel rods through the corners.

Next, on the back we hammered panel connectors along the seam of the fused boards.  Adding the chicken wire was the next step.  If you have ever used this stuff, you know it is hard to cut without getting scraped up!  Cutting the chicken wire the desired size and then stapling it into the wood…always leaves your fingers scrapped up.

We screwed some boards over the chicken wires edge.  This step had a two-fold purpose.  One, it covered the chicken wire’s edge up, so as to prevent more injuries.  Second, the extra wood panels helped reinforce the wood staying together.

One thing we learned with pallet wood is it is really hard stuff! It might be from being wet and dried so many times outside, or maybe they out some kind of sealer/treatment?  Either way, this pallet wood was hard and tough to hammer and drill into.

I than sanded the frame, and it was complete!!

Since this is a family shower, and it’s all people who the engaged couple love and are close to..I thought it would be fun to do a more personal “game”.  Everyone was supposed to write their recipe for a good marriage on a card and clip it to this board.

The cards weren’t read aloud, so people could be as honest as they want.  My heart was that people would encourage this sweet couple and give advice that could help them in life and especially the first year of marriage, which is typically pretty hard.  I of course forgot to write mine while playing hostess.

I have no idea what was written on those cards, but I hope it was good stuff!!  This board is pretty big.  I LOVED it!  I’m so glad I didn’t end up painting it-which I toyed with in my mind for a little while.

Jennifer loves rustic, vintage type decor.  That is the theme of their wedding, and I can’t wait for it in September!  All three of my kids are in it!  🙂  She loved this frame.  I am so glad because it was hers!  The other part of their shower gift will be shown with more shower pictures in my Friday Project Spotlight post.

We had a great weekend and I hope you did too!!  happy Monday!!

I linked this project up over at Southern Hospitality.  Check out all the thrifty finds/projects!  I also linked it up at Delightful Order.