Scavenger Chic

Barrel Hoop and Driftwood Heart

• By Joan
• January 27, 2019
• 2 Comments

Before I started Scavenger Chic I never decorated for Valentine’s Day.   The day was made solely for special dinners, candy hearts and flowers.  But over the past five years I’ve found that I really enjoy scouring the workshop for whatever castaway item I can find, usually pallet wood, and cutting and painting until a heart emerged.

This project started with this lonely misshapen barrel hoop.  A dump find which probably should have been an Easter egg but I saw heart.  How hard could it possibly be to bend a little piece of metal?

You’ll also need, driftwood, scrapwood for a backing and builders adhesive.

Turns out, barrel hoops are so much stronger than they look and this one was totally fighting me on that heart thing.  So here I am getting out the C clamp so I can squish the  inner part of the heart.

I just googled if the inner part of the heart has a name and all it came up with was heart chambers, valves and vessels, not exactly what I was going for, so I’ll just call it the inner pointy part.

From that inner pointy part, I used a tape measure to find exactly where the outer pointy part would be.  Mark that point because that is where you want your bend.

After much hammering, bending  and wiggling I finally got the barrel hoop to almost look like a heart.  It wasn’t even, but it was definitely heart shaped.

I liked the right side more than the left so I cut a pattern out of just the right side.

Double that pattern, transfer it onto 1 inch particle board and cut out.  

Feel free to use any scrap wood you have laying around.  My particle board was not wide enough to cut the entire heart at once so I did it in 2 pieces.

As expected, the right side was inserted with no problem but the left side needed to be pounded into submission.  Can you tell, I don’t work with metal often?

Paint the boards black so that any gaps will appear as just shadows beneath the driftwood.

To attach the wood to the metal heart I used a nice bead of construction adhesive.

If the metal wants to bow out long clamps will hold everything in place until the adhesive dries.

Hope you have a pile of driftwood because this is the fun part, filling up the heart.  If you don’t have driftwood you may still be able to find aged, barkless sticks on your next hike.  Sanding the rough edges will give you almost the same look.

Cut the edges of the driftwood as needed following the angle of the metal.

To attach the driftwood, I prefer a nailgun but glue would also work.  I used  2 nails per  wood piece only using hot glue on the thinnest of pieces.

On a wide little piece of driftwood  draw a heart.  Cut it out with a jigsaw or scroll saw and sand the edges.

Paint and resand the edges of the little heart.  Attach to the driftwood heart with hot glue.

If you do not have a barrel hoop you could still make this project just attaching your driftwood directly to the wood backing.

And if you’re not feeling inspired by driftwood, maybe one of my past hearts will spark your creativity.

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Spindle and Pallet Wood Heart Pallet Wood Junk Heart Reclaimed wood and Corrugated Metal Heart Bathroom Makeover, 20 Upcycled Towel Holder Ideas