Salsa Bar

Salsa anyone?

Today I'm linking to Suzanne at Meridian Road 



I made this cute salsa bar to display the delicious salsas my family and friends bring to family get-togethers in the summertime.



This was a fun project that took about 6 hours to complete. First, I purchased plywood from Lowe's. I cut the wood using a jigsaw. The front panel measures 4 feet wide by 3 feet high. Since the side panels slide in for easy storage, they each had to be half the size of the front panel, measuring at 2 feet wide by 3 feet high each. This is a side view:

The sides are held together with hinges. Each side panel has a hinge on top and one towards the bottom. The tricky part here is you really need to be careful when you screw in the hinge. You will need to leave room to account for the width of the side panel so that when you open it, it will be flush with the front panel, there won't be a gap.

To finish it off, I used wood trim on the top and bottom and adhered it with wood glue. I didn't use nails, the glue is pretty strong.

There is a trick to the trim, though. You need to leave extra trim (see panel below, the trim is a little longer than the panel it's attached to, in this case, the right side panel). This extra trim is needed so that when it's closed, it will meet up with the trim on the front panel. Here's a picture of the extra trim on the side panel :


And, here's a picture of the side panel completely open with the trim meeting together.



This picture show how I close it to store away. The side panels fold onto the front panel. It can then lean against a wall for easy storage.

This next picture is the top view that shows the holes where the bowls go and the center hole where the tiki umbrella is inserted (sorry, I don't have a pic of the umbrella). To make the holes, first draw your circles the size of the smaller part of the bowl. They have to be the kind of bowl that starts small at the bottom and has a wider opening so that it won't fall through. I found mine at the 99cents store. Once the circles are drawn, use a drill bit to poke a small hole then use the jigsaw to cut the circles out.
The yellow paint was paint I had left over from my kids bedroom. Water based flat paint. For the flowers, butterflies and dragonflies, I used stencyls. I freehanded the chili peppers. I used acrylic paints for all the drawings.


I purchased the wood letters at Michael's and painted them with acrylic paint. I attached them to the plywood with wood glue.




The next thing to tackle is a karaoke stage, I'm thinking purple velvet and disco ball, I shall succeed! stay tuned.