This Is: License Plate Art

This is a sheet of corrugated metal siding.

This is an old coffee can of salvaged hardware.

This is a pile of partially rusted bolts.

This is a stack of license plates.

This is license plates hanging on a sheet of corrugated metal siding.

This is a weathered board of siding.

This is artwork.

This is

From time to time I've posted some of my DIY projects on the blog using my "This is..." format (examples here, here, here and here). I've decided to make it its own standing feature. I really should have done it sooner, but here's the first official This Is post.

This is a project I kind of stumbled into by accident. I've always liked the stack of old license plates in my parents' barn, but I don't really have any wall space in my garage to hang them on. It felt like such a shame that such beautiful plates were sitting in a stack ignored. That was until I came across this old sheet of metal siding while I was poking around the barn for cool stuff a couple of weeks ago. When I saw it, I immediately thought it would make a great backdrop for the license plates.

Those of you who know me know I'm pretty thrifty (my wife would say cheap, but she doesn't run this blog, I do, so I'm going with thrifty). Like many of my projects, this one was 100 percent free. The only fringe cost was the gas it took to get from Sodus to my garage.

A majority of the license plates I used were the standard 12-inch size.

But some of the plates were a larger 13.5-inch wide variety. One of them is labeled "Farm," so maybe it was just the farm plates that were bigger. I'm not sure.

Of course after I had hanged all of the license plates I was going to use, Tim gave me this smaller motorcycle plate. It's not a Michigan plate like the others, but it's cool enough that I think I would have included it. I guess it will just have to hang in my garage instead.

This plate is somewhat special in that the tags for it were actually metal. I guess stickers weren't a thing in the '40s.

I can't explain why they covered the 8-31-42 portion of the plate with a 42 tag. It's old, so it's hard to tell, but this plate is actually blue. Those yellow tags must have looked pretty awesome with this plate back in the day.

For those of you who are wondering, it's hanging on the fence in the back corner of the backyard. I'm hoping to come into some more brick pavers soon so I can install a large fire pit area back here next spring. This corner doesn't get a lot of sunlight, so the grass never grows real great here anyway.

Obligatory picture of a child to make this post Decoding Dadhood appropriate.