Stenciled & Stained Wooden Planter Boxes

Disclosure: I received free product and compensation from Minwax, but all opinions are my own. And I only write about products that I love. Read my full disclosure policy here.

I’m back again today with a quick-and-easy crafty how-to video showing you how you can create an expensive inlaid wood look with stain and stencils.

When I went to the ultimate picker’s yard sale, I bought a bunch of small wooden planter boxes from him. Many of them had  sustained some water damage, so they needed a little pick-me-up. (You can find similar wooden herb boxes here.)

Instead of paint, I grabbed some fun stain products from Minwax, the sponsor of this month’s Crafty Hangouts series, along with some simple letter stencils I cut on my Silhouette Cameo, and began the transformation.

I used the handy Minwax wood finishing cloths and Minwax Express Color in Oak and Minwax Express Clear in Low Gloss on my wooden planter boxes.

You can watch the complete before-and-after transformation in the video below.

See, I told you it was quick and easy!

I love how easy it is to stencil with the Minwax wood finishing cloths. I really didn’t have to worry about the stain seeping under my stencil like you would with paint or regular liquid stain.

And the dark mahogany stain created really showed up well, whether I was stenciling over stain or paint, as I did with the Blooms box since it had some water damage I wanted to cover.

If you’ve only ever used stain that comes in cans,  prepare to be amazed when you check out all these other wood projects my fellow bloggers created using Minwax products.

And as I promised in the video, I’ll be back soon with a tutorial for how to clean and transform dried gourds for your fall decorating. I love how stain transforms them, as well.