Pallet Sports Medal Display

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It’s nearly time for fall soccer!  I love/hate this season.  I love going to the games and seeing my kids play and seeing my friends cheering for their own kids.  But sometimes it’s cold or rainy and I don’t love it as much then.  And at the end of the season I’m ready for it to be done.  But I really do love the feeling my kids have after they play, feeling good about themselves and knowing they are getting better.

We’ve competed in soccer for about four years I think, but regardless, we have plenty of end-of-season medals to show for it.  And I hate to have these just sit in a drawer but they seem a little random placed on hooks on the wall.  I decided to make a medal display just for their medals that would also work with the rustic industrial theme that will soon be their bedroom style.

I disassembled an old pallet and believe it or not, this was my first time doing that.  Pallet projects have been around forever but I’d never use them before.  My friend found this old one and I got a reciprocating saw with a 12″ blade and we pretty easily sawed through all the nails.  It took about half an hour to take apart the entire thing and it was nice that we didn’t have to worry about removing the nails.  They add so much to the look of the boards!

After I did that, I cut the boards to size and secured them together with some 2x4s on the back, using 2″ nails from my brad nailer.  The displays were ready for a little embellishment.

I freehanded a drawing of a soccer ball and a baseball, the two sports my boys like the best.  The soccer ball took a couple tries to get right because it’s not just a matter of drawing hexagons, you have to kind of make it look spherical because otherwise it looks like a soccer pizza.  The hexagon has to kind of get squatty at the bottom and top and sides.

After I penciled it out, I used a small paintbrush and DecoArt Americana acrylic paint in Cotton Ball to paint over my lines.  I also dry brushed through the entire ball.  Then I added some color, using Chalky Finish paint in Relic and Chalky Finish paint in Romance.

After it was dry, I got out the mouse sander and sanded the entire thing down.  This happily didn’t take away all the patina of the wood but took off a lot of the paint to make it more faded and worn looking.  Plus it helps with the imperfections in my drawing skills.

The last step was to drill small holes in the top and screw in little C hooks.  This is where the medals will hang and I left plenty of room for future medals.  I also thought that if your child has trophies you could easily screw or nail a little shelf at the bottom to place the trophies there.

Pretty easy project and I can’t wait to hang these up once the rest of the industrial decor is done.

My post was sponsored by DecoArt, all opinions are my own.