Make Your Own Decorative Wall Panels

A while ago – I was contacted by the good folks at Dremel who asked me if I would like to try out their two new products.  The Dremel Trio and Dremel Multi Max.  I said “Of course!!!” because I love my original Dremel tool!  So they sent them over.  But with moving and such, I hadn’t had a weekend free to play with them yet.  That and I needed to find something that I wanted to do!  (Disclaimer: While Dremel did send me these fantastic tools – I have received no other compensation for this post and my words and opinions are my own.)

Then I saw Beckie’s  guest post she did on Thrifty Decor Chick where she showcased this beautiful wall panel.  Beckie blogs over at Infarrently Creative – and she is an absolute genius!  So I started thinking about that panel and decided I wanted to do something similar myself – inspired by Beckie! 

So first – I went out and got a 2’x4’ piece of birch plywood from Lowe’s – ran about $8.  I decided to do two vertical panels so I traced out those lines first. 

I decided I wanted to do a vine motif pattern on mine, but I couldn’t find a good stencil I wanted to use.  So I went back and checked out Beckie’s post.  Of course – she traced her design by hand!  Was I that brave?  Well after much web soul searching, I decided to just wing it and trace it out myself.  I also tried to be “smart” about it and trace any defects or blemishes into the design. 

I then grabbed my handy dandy Dremel Trio and started cutting out my design.  The Trio can work as a jig or a router or a sander.  Handy little beast!  And cutting into wood with the Trio was so simple.  You just put the bit at a 90 degree angle and start it up and plunge in. 

And it cuts like butter!  Ooh!  It took me no time to cut out my design.  Though I did decide for stability that I wouldn’t cut out quite as much as I had drawn.  I also left it whole instead of cutting it in half to start which also helped the wood be less shaky when cutting since it was so thin. 

 

Next up – I had to sand down the rough edges.  So simple – first I took the Multi Max (cordless and I love it) to the back to take off any rough edges underneath where the plywood may have splintered.  Took me so little time – I forgot to take a picture of it!  Oops!  (Bad Blogger!!)  Then to get the detailed edges of my design – I attached a grinding bit to my regular Dremel.  Worked perfectly.

Next – I cut some molding out with my miter box and glued it on to the frame.  I then took the panels out and gave them a nice spray of ORB paint.   Don’t they look purdy!  

So here they are mounted up on the wall! 

I decided to put them on the large expanse of wall behind our front door.  Really works well in the space there.  They pop off the wall and I think the cut out gives them some great 3-D depth! 

 

Here is a closer shot so you can see some of the detail! 

Ah … now all that’s left is to do something about those vertical blinds!  Oh well – we are never done are we!

 

So – what do you think?  Are you itching to get some wood and pick up some tools? 

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