Tired of spending time each day tidying up the art supplies? You need one of these! It is a very simple and effective design using a re-purposed pallet which hangs your supplies on the wall. It's also cheap as it's mainly made out of recycled materials. Best of all it's easy to make!

Supplies

1. 1 x pallet

2. 1.5m x 1m of 7mm ply wood

3. Board 125mm wide x 155mm long (The thickness of a pallet board)

4. One extra piece of pallet board or scrap wood approx 250mm x100 x15mm

5. A drill and an impact driver (or screw driver)

6. Large & small nails/panel pins and screws

7. Undercoat paint

8. Coloured paint (your choice of colour)

9. Doweling, 1.5m long x 10mm in diameter

10. 3 x Plant pots and 2 x dishwasher cutlery baskets (I found two at our local Reuse shop for $3) or similar sized containers to hold pencils/paintbrushes and gluesticks.

11. 2 x paper storage trays - we saved ours from the recycling bin! (but you could buy these new if you needed to, at an office supply store)

12. Tape measure

13. Hand saw, jig saw and a hack saw

14. Orbital sander (or a sanding block and elbow grease)

15. Sand paper

16. PVA wood glue and Allfix glue

Step 1: Sanding the Pallet

With the underside of the pallet facing you, remove the top board with a hammer claw to wedge it away, (try not to split it as you need to reuse it) and cut the nails off with a hack saw or similar.

Take your orbital sander and sand this side of the pallet as this will be the front of your supply stand. Also sand the top board you just removed. (Sanding well will save paint and time later)

Next take the top board you removed and cut it into two pieces to fit, to make the bottom parts of the middle shelf. (as per last photo). Nail these into place from underneath.

Please note: as each pallet uses slightly different thicknesses of wood and spacings between boards I will leave you to measure and work out exact lengths at certain points of the process, please check that any measurements are suitable for your size pallet.

Step 2: Putting in the Pegs

Mark a line 50mm down from the top of the upper most board and draw it right across (I didn't do that in the photos but should have to save myself some measuring!) Next make vertical marks every 100mm for the first half of the pallet (these are where the tape rolls will hang) and every 50mm for the second half (this is where the scissors will hang). Drill a hole (the width of your doweling) at the crosses on a slight angle (so the tape rolls and scissors do not fall off!) Take your doweling and cut 15 x 100mm lengths and tap them into the holes with a hammer (if they are a bit loose, glue them in with PVA).

Step 3: Undercoat Your Pallet

Paint your pallet with undercoat, front and sides. Don't forget the insides of your shelves.

Step 4: Extending the Middle Shelf to Fit the Pencil Holders

Extending the middle shelf at two sections

Measure along the middle shelf from the left edge of the center pillar out 160mm, draw a vertical line (make sure this is a couple mm longer than the width of the cutlery holder). Do the same measurement out from the right edge of the center pillar. Cut down these lines with the hand saw and stop just before the base of the shelf, you don't want to cut into that! Use the two pieces you cut out to extend the front of those parts of the shelf. Just cut them to the right size to extend the shelf to fit the cutlery holders and then glue and nail them into place.

Step 5: Vertical Slots

Take your plywood and draw 5 rectangular pieces 265mm high x 230mm wide and 1 piece 105mm high x the length of half the pallet (this piece sits along the front of the vertical slots). Using the shorter edge as the base, change the rectangles by cutting the front top corner off each - all 5 pieces should be the same size and shape. Cut out with a saw or jigsaw. Sand off any rough edges. Undercoat and top coat your plywood pieces as it is difficult to get a brush into the gaps later (I only undercoated them as the photos show but wished I had top coated them as well!).

Attach your 125mm x 155mm board to extend the shelf by using two stunted right angled pieces screwed into the pallet blocks on each side of the first two uprights. Screw the board to these 'triangular' pieces. Take 2 of the 5 painted pieces of plywood and nail them to the sides (as per fourth photo) and glue and nail the piece of 105mm high plywood to the front. Evenly space the last 3 painted pieces between the left and right sides. Glue them into place front and back. If you want them to be extra secure, use a couple of panel pins and nail them in from the back and underneath.

Step 6: Brackets for Paintbrush Containers and Painting Top Coat

On your left-over ply wood draw 9 rectangles 110mm x 50mm (you may need to change the width according to the containers you have). Cut them out and glue and nail three 'U' shapes as per 2nd photo. Under coat and top coat these. Nail them to the pallet in the three places shown. They need to be able to hold your three (plant pot) containers which will hold paint brushes/glue sticks.

Paint the entire pallet a colour of your choice.

Step 7: Attaching Paper Trays and Words of Inspiration

You're nearly there! Take the extra piece of pallet wood and cut 4 right angle triangles with a base of 250mm and width of a pallet board. These will be bases to hold the paper trays. Undercoat and top coat the triangles. Once dry, glue then screw them from behind onto the 3rd horizontal plank up from the bottom of the pallet and 30mm in from the vertical planks. Glue the paper trays to the triangles using 'Allfix' glue (or any other glue that sticks plastic to wood).

I choose to place some inspiring 'art words' on my pallet:

Imagine

Design

Create

Make

Now the part you've been waiting for...hang it on your classroom wall and fill it with your art supplies! You'll have every teacher in the school wanting their own one! I'm going to give mine to my favourite student teacher.