Western General Store

I was called upon to create Buckle Display Boxes for prizes for rodeo events, so I thought this would be a great project for this blog. We decided on a 3 buckle box. After studying a friend's display box, these are the dimensions I chose, but they are not firm, so you can use this as a base to work from. This project is fairly easy to make. The hardest part is choosing paint colors and decoration. Red Oak pieces were cut out. Pictured is a strange rasp that was in the wood shop which I thought I would use to distress the wood. Instead I used a wire brush on the drill press. Distressing the wood. I painted all the pieces an acrylic vintage white. I didn't worry about complete coverage. This is one of my favorite brushes. I took and old fan brush and trimmed it with scissors. I dipped the brush into the paint and removed the excess. I lightly spread on the second color (acrylic aqua). You can see the detail of the distressed wood. I applied a little glue and nailed it all togethe...

I came across this website on how to make wood stars, so we got right to work, as it looked pretty simple. This star is made out of mahogany 1x2 standing on edge. It is approximately 16"x 16". We tried to build it with the 1x2's laying flat and the dimensions didn't work out, so we adjusted the dimensions and built it anyway. I like them both. The first star has 3 coats of marine varnish, so it could be hung inside or outside. The second star is also made from mahogany and has two coats of spray polyurethane. These would be great for décor or holidays.