Distressing a New Wood Planter Box

I recent­ly had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share this adorable wood planter box and a fun new age­ing tech­nique with the sub­scribers of the DIY Decor Box. Each mem­ber receives a DIY project in the mail each month that they then get to craft and style for their own home decor! 

In addi­tion to send­ing the box­es, I also like to share tips and tricks for paint­ing, stain­ing, and of course a styling tip here and there. I espe­cial­ly loved this project because I got to share one of my favorite ways for giv­ing a clean straight edge wood piece just a bit of char­ac­ter through the use of stain lay­er­ing and hammer/nail distressing. 

Here is what you will need to recre­ate this look on your own Wood Planter Box!

Stain

• Ham­mer
• Nail or screw
• Stain
• Stain rag
• Foam appli­ca­tor

Styling

• Jute twine
• Flo­rals
• Vinyl trans­fer

You can see all of the con­tents of the April box here below. As you can see we send every­thing our sub­scribers need to imme­di­ate­ly begin their project, with the exclu­sion of basic house­hold tools.

Begin the stain­ing process by sat­u­rat­ing your foam appli­ca­tor and drip stain all over your wood sur­face. Do this now and allow it to dry to the touch before mov­ing on to the next step. Use a heat gun or hairdry­er to accel­er­ate this process. 

Then take a ham­mer and nail or a screw and begin ham­mer­ing all over the sur­face of your wood. I like to ran­dom­ly place the nail and make inden­tions with it and the ham­mer for a bit of added char­ac­ter. These scrapes and inden­ta­tions will show up more vivid once you apply your last bit of stain.

When you’re sat­is­fied with our dis­tress­ing use the foam appli­ca­tor or stain cloth to blend and work more stain into the sur­face of the wood planter box. See those inden­ta­tions I just mentioned?

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Then you will LOVE the R+R DIY Decor Box! Get amaz­ing home decor projects + sup­plies shipped to your door each month!

I added a cute lit­tle vinyl trans­fer to the base of the box for a lit­tle some­thing extra. The pos­si­bil­i­ties are real­ly end­less with this lit­tle box. I do rec­om­mend seal­ing every­thing if you are plan­ning to use your box outdoors.

I fin­ished off this project with a cute pop­py drop in flower and a bit of jute twine and you’re ready for dis­play­ing your new wood planter box on the porch, your fire­place man­tle or any­where you would like to add a touch of rus­tic charm!