Rustic Whitewashed Wooden Cross

Use barn wood or reclaimed wood (fence pickets work great) to make this easy DIY wood cross with a flower vase.

Reusing old wood and glass jars in one project?!  Yeah, I agree, it doesn’t get any better than that to those of us that love to reuse stuff that is otherwise destined for the garbage!

I started with an old cedar fence picket I had leftover from another project. You could use any type of wood here, but I personally liked the worn look of this reclaimed piece of wood. I cut down the fence picket into four pieces – three pieces all the same length and one piece that was longer.  Instead of measuring,, I just eyeballed the size based on how big I wanted the cross to be. 

I then found the halfway point on the width of each board and marked it.  My preferred way to find the halfway point without any math is to take a piece of paper, trim it down to the width of the wood, and then fold it in half.  Faster for me than measuring and dividing!

I set my miter saw at a 45 degree angle and made my cut right at that halfway point I marked.

I swung my saw around to the other 45 degree mark and cut the other side.  This takes a little bit of practice, but once you get a hang of the width of your saw blade, it’ll work out just fine.  It might be worth it to practice on a couple pieces of scrap wood first, though.

I whitewashed the pieces (using this method for whitewashing wood) to lighten them up and give them a bit more dimension.

Then, I used my Kreg Jig to connect all the pointed pieces together in the center. This tool is amazing for attaching flat boards together to make signs, joining together wood at right angles, or really anytime I need to create joints.  It’s super easy to use, too!

My wood was 5/8″ thick, so I set my drill bit to that length. Then, I rested one of the cut sides onto the jig and drilled one hole into each of the boards.

Here is a look at all the recessed holes ready for the screws. Just be sure to add some wood glue between each of the joints before screwing them together.

Don’t have a Kreg Jig? Using these metal brackets will work just as well!

To hang the glass jar, I wrapped some 20 gauge wire around the neck of the jar, but underneath one of the screw rings so it doesn’t slip.

On the back, I make a little loop with the wire for hanging.

A picture hanging bracket is the perfect sized hook to hang up the glass jar.  If you’re using an old glass food jar, you’ll want to check out how to remove stuck-on labels from jars.

This DIY wood cross was literally free for me to make as all the supplies I used were materials I had on hand.

I personally think the character in using actual reclaimed wood just can’t be matched by the imitation “rustic” pieces in stores.