Hi, crafty friend! This dollar store DIY is so fun and these little pallets are perfect for displaying in your own home or gifting to a friend who loves to garden. I altered and decorated some mini wood palettes from my local Dollar Tree using Prima's Homegrown collection, which is full of gardening and harvest motifs. 

I've got the full supply list for this project below so you can recreate it. Now, let's get right into the tutorial.

Create some mould casts using Prima's Little Gardeners mould and Redesign's Ornate Legacy mould. You can use either Redesign's Casting Mix or resin. If you use resin, be sure to prime your moulds with gesso once they are set. I prefer Finn's Clear Gesso for this as it doesn't diminish the details of your mould like the heavier white or black gessoes. 

Paint two of the mini wood pallets with Finn's Heavy White Gesso to prime the wood. This will give a nice bright white base for the paint to sit on and you won't use up as much of your acrylic paint. Unprimed wood is super thirsty and would just soak your acrylics right up, causing you to use more paint. 

After the gesso is dry on your pallet, paint it with one of the Homegrown Color Chronicle matte acrylics. I used shade Peach Blossom for mine. And paint your mould casts as well. I used both the Color Chronicle acrylics and the Art Philosophy Watercolor Confections Decadent Pies set. 

The Ornate Legacy moulds were painted with the acrylic in Herb Garden then had white gesso dry brushed over it to highlight the texture. The leaves on both mice moulds got a layer of Herb Garden acrylic to lighten the hue of the green watercolor. 

For the mice, I started out with all watercolors to give them a nice colorful base. Their denim in their outfits got a layer of Morning Mist acrylic over the top--this reactivates the darker blue watercolor and creates a cool slightly lighter matte effect perfect for denim.  

The blouse on the girl mouse also got a layer of Butter Petal acrylic. This locks in the yellow watercolor so I could add details to her blouse using watercolors. I dotted on some of the white watercolor to create the flowers, then a tiny dot of Peach Blossom acrylic to create the flower centers. The boy mouse also got white gesso for his shirt, then stripes with the Morning Mist acrylic. 

Then I used the Peach Blossom paint to add color to the mice's noses. The highlights in their eyes and on the apples are a tiny dots of white gesso. Then I dry brushed both mice moulds with white gesso in strategic places to create a time-worn feel and to highlight their whiskers. The finishing touch was adding a little bit of silver paint to the hardware on the mice's denim outfits. 

The paint job on the mice moulds is the most time-consuming part, but well worth the effort! 

Cut some strips of the 6x8 Homegrown paper pad to fit the slats of your wood pallet, distress the edges of them with the distressing tool from Sizzix, and attach them with Sizzix Express Glue. I also added some pom pom trim to the bottom slat with hot glue. 

Cut a 7 inch length of one of the Homegrown Spools of yarn for each pallet and hot glue the strings to the top back of your pallets to create cute little "hanging" strings. 

Add some 3mm thick foam adhesive to the back of your Ornate Legacy frame moulds and attach it to the center of each pallet. Then use hot glue and Heavy Body Gel to attach a mouse to the center of the frame. (The hot glue gives instant hold while the Gel provides long-lasting hold.)

I used a few things from my stash that aren't available as of writing this blog. The first is Finnabair Mechanicals Woodland. These are some metal leaves. But you can easily trade these out for some die cut leaves or other metal leaves for beading. I've added a few options to the bottom of the supply list for you.

The other thing that I have in my stash that isn't available yet as of writing this blog is the die cut veggies. This is from Spellbinder's Stitching Club for April. Any dies that are left after all club memberships are filled are added to their site a la cart a few months later. As soon as it's added to the site, I'll add it to my list. But if you just can't wait, I've added some stitched veggie dies from Lawn Fawn to the bottom of the list as well. 

I cut my veggies from some of the Homegrown 4x6 Journaling Notecards. I glued them together with Sizzix Express Glue then added them to the pallets with foam adhesive. I also added some of t he paper flowers from the Homegrown collection using hot glue. 

The fishing touch was adding some of the blue gems from the Homegrown Say It In Crystals and a Chipboard Sticker sentiment from the collection as well. I used hot glue to attach the chipboard sticker and Express Glue to give extra adhesion to the crystal gems. 

And that's it! A super sweet little dollar store DIY  perfect for those who love gardening! I hope this inspired you to create with Prima's Homegrown collection. The little mice in this collection are so sweet and the moulds are absolutely adorable. Until next time, happy crafting!

Adrienne

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Below are products that I used for this project.