Trick or Treat Pumpkin Pallet

Hello Clear Scraps friends! Today I'm sharing this super cute birch wood Pumpkin DIY Pallet Shape!

While I was creating this I couldn't make my mind up between a solely Halloween or Autumn decoration - I believe I found my happy medium. I started by painting the stem and once that dried I painted the pumpkin and set them to dry overnight.

I cut out the Trick or Treat vinyl template using my Cameo Silhouette machine, then weeded the inside of the design to create the mask.

You can find this file in the Silhouette store (277509) I applied the design to the Pumpkin Pallet and burnished it to try and prevent bleeding because I planned on painting the words in black paint. 

My plan was to peel this while the paint was still wet.

If you look closely, the wood splintered and pulled up because I had not prepped the surface correctly.

I'm sharing so this doesn't happen again in the future, Believe you me, I do plan on trying this again because it is SO fun and the finished project adorable!

What I should have done is finely sanded the wood before painting with a fine grit sandpaper. I think that would have prevented the pulling of the wood when peeling up the vinyl template. I also think a really dry application of the orange would have prevented the bleeding, and then after dry, painting the words in black.  Through trial and error, I plan on figuring this out. :) 

To fix my mistakes and make it appear as I meant to have it more distressed, I sanded the splintered wood with a fine sandpaper then reapplied some orange paint. After that dried, I applied a Clear lacquer and allowed it to dry for an hour. I would recommend more applications if this is to be an outside decoration. 

I then found this old candle wrap and repurposed it along with some faux leaves and hot glued them onto the pumpkin pallet.

Leah Crowe, Clear Scraps Designer