My very first DIY tutorial: Easy, adorable pallet coasters

Behold, my first DIY tutorial! Ideally I will have a new blog coming soon for these projects, but for now this space I have will have to do. I figured out I'm pretty good at recreating things I see, so I'm going to start dabbling in the DIY.

I know everyone is secretly dying to know how to make coasters that look like miniature pallets, so I made them and took pictures along the way. :)

Supplies:
A bag of popsicle/craft sticks
hot glue or wood glue (I used wood glue because Walmart was sold out of hot glue guns)
wood stain, a rag, and disposable gloves
scissors

Instructions

1. Cut the ends off of the sticks. I actually did this at the end because I was afraid to cut them at first, but do it first so the stain gets all over it. A good pair of scissors should be able to cut them without any real splintering problems.
2. Put those gloves on and stain the sticks! As much as I didn't want to do it, I ended up staining them one at a time. I dipped the rag in stain and then ran it along the popsicle stick. This let me do both sides at once, even if it meant having to do them one by one.
   
   You should end up with a nice pile of beautiful stained sticks :)
   
3. Once they are dry place 2 sticks parallel to each other a stick's width apart.
   
4. Put glue on each stick at about the same distance from one of the edges.
   
   Again, I had to use wood glue, but you'll see in the final image that its actually visible when it dries. I would rather have used hot glue.
    
5. Find 3 sticks that are the same width (or height since they will be standing on their side.) These will be the "cross beams" of your pallet.
   Place one across the 2 sticks laying down on the glue.
   
   
    You may need to hold it for a second so the glue can hold it up.
   
   
   Repeat with the next 2 sticks, one halfway and one at the bottom.
   
   
6. Once those 3 are pretty set, grab 2 more sticks to be glued on top, right above the original 2 sticks laying down.
   Glue them on by adding the glue to the top of each of the 3 standing up sticks where the 2 new ones will lay.
   
   
7. Take 6 more sticks and arrange them across the top. Do not glue yet.
   
   
8. Once you're happy with the spacing, start gluing one stick down by putting the glue across the 3 sticks standing up. Continue this for all 6 sticks until they are glued in placed.
   
   
9. Once all of the top sticks are set in place and dried, turn the pallet coaster over to add a few sticks to the back for an authentic pallet look. Repeat the same process that was done on the top. I added only 4 sticks to the bottom to save on sticks and because most pallets do have slats missing.
   
   
10. Once those have dried, flip it back over and you're done!
    

I LOVE miniature versions of things, so I'm obsessed with how cute they are. I made these for my parent's house, but I'm thinking I'll need to make some to go with my pallet table.

Have fun!