Upcycled Orange Crate

Sometimes I think most of my creativity originates from my microscopic budget. It forces me to think outside of the box, or as in this case outside of the crate. (no pun intended?) We love clementines and a few weeks ago Kroger had them on sale. They came packed in this crate…

I almost threw it away. It’s a sad looking crate. Nothing going for it all except that it could hold stuff. Not that I have stuff that needs holding. Okay that is a lie, I have plenty of things I could find to put in here if it were presentable. I decided to give it a chance. I knew I was going to paint it but I wanted something more than just a plain vanilla box. I was looking for a picture or saying to either Mod Podge or otherwise attach to the front. After about an hour of looking through magazines, stencils, stamps and coming up without an idea, I found my stash of vellum quote books. I have had these for many years. When I purchased them many moons ago I thought (wrongly of course) that they were the type of transfer that you could rub off onto wood or paper. I had no need for them not being what I thought were so in the craft drawer they went. I have used them a few times since then for scrapbooking and card making but mainly they have just taken up space. I wanted the crate to work in just about any room of the house so I chose an inspirational quote and lucky for me it was in one of my favorite colors, green.

I decided on Apple Barrel’s Antique White for the crate. I was concerned about covering the dark blue and red, however my impatient self was not concerned enough to sand it first. I did take the time to pull out the extra staples. Here it is after two coats. I was pleased at how well it was covering the dark colors so far.

Well, it ended up taking five coats! Although the paint in the above pic was dry to the touch, the dark colors continued to bleed through. When I was finally happy with the paint coverage, I grabbed the Mod Podge. I decided to cut around the words with decorative scissors. I had a look in my mind but it didn’t pan out. The next fail was something I walked right into . The last time I used Mod Podge over this paint it turned a pale pink in a couple spots. Yes, unfortunately it happened again.

Here is the finished crate. It’s on my dresser for the moment but that may change soon.

You can probably see the blotchy pink on the left? I know I can If I sand it a little I’m probably going to end up revealing those beautiful dark colors, LOL. For now I’m going to leave it alone. Maybe I’ll repaint it or leave it as is and use it on the porch to hold some flower pots in the spring. I’m also sure our love for clementines will bring me more crates.

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