Wine Crate Centerpieces

With all of the inspiring ideas floating around on Pintrest, my crafty side has been going crazy in wanting to make stuff for our wedding. The Mr and I have been very conscious of the overall cost of the wedding. We are very lucky to have such generous family members who are helping us with this cost. With that said, we still have been coming up with various ideas that will help save us money along the way, but still get us the look that we are going for.

The idea for our centerpieces came from this photo that I saw on Pintrest.

Since we are having our ceremony and reception at a winery a wine crate centerpiece would only be fitting for the tables. So my Mr, who is always motivated to find a good deal and bargain hunt, went on a mission to find me some wine crates. After watching Craigslist for a couple of weeks he found someone getting rid of 8 crates for $25! I looked into the cost of renting the crates and some quotes I received were around $20 each to rent. Buying the crates was a way better option for us to save money in the long run. I am also very lucky to have future in laws who have amazing gardening skills that are willing to plant all of my crates with succulents. More on the plants to come.

Here are how the crates looked when we got them. Boring old blonde wood, with paper and glue stuck to them, yuck! The Mr and I cleaned them up with a razor blade and some Glass Plus (knock-off Windex).

Once we got all of that yucky stuff off we took a palm sander and lightly sanded the boxes down so that I could stain them the color that we wanted.

Choosing a stain was a little challenging, I wanted a the boxes to have a rustic/weathered color and for the wood gain to show threw the stain. We ended up choosing this Dark Walnut color from Minwax.

I think the boxes came out awesome and I am totally in love! Here is a little step by step of how I stained mine. In no way am I an expert on staining, this is simply the steps that worked for me.

First you need to choose your stain color, you'll also need cheesecloth and rubber gloves. Rubber gloves are necessary as the stain will stain your fingers and stay on for a couple of days.

Unroll your cheesecloth and cut yourself off two sections. One section will be used to apply the stain, the other will be used to wipe off the stain and achieve that brushed/weathered look. Take one section of cheesecloth and dip it in your stain, be careful as a little goes a long ways.

Once the cheesecloth is wet, start apply stain to your wood. I used a circular motion to apply the stain until the whole side was covered.
This is what one side of the box looks like after getting stain and before the wipe off with the dry cheesecloth.

Complete the wipe off in the same circular pattern that you used when applying the stain.

There you have it. Complete the other sides of your box and you are golden. I did stain a portion of the inside of the box that might be seen after planting but no need to do the whole thing since the box will be filled with dirt. So what do you think? Overall cost of the project was $13.40 for the stain, cheesecloth and gloves. With the cost of the boxes that makes it $33.40 for all 8 boxes. Plus we get to take them home at the end of the night or send them with guests.

I am thinking about using a wood burner to put our initials on the side or use my family's brand and brand the side of some of the boxes to really give it that personal country touch!