Tutorial: Spoon Garden Stakes

My little antique spoon garden stakes turned out so cute, I thought I'd give more info about how to make your own! Here's what you need:

-Antique spoons. See if you can find the real silver ones - you may have to do some digging at Value Village.

-Mod Podge

-Paper

-Colored Pencils

-A very fine point, archival-quality pen

-Paintbrush

Start by using the pen and pencils to create your art. I like the simple look of the herbs. I "repurposed" some junk mail for this project.

Tear out your pictures.

I used some antiquing medium and acrylic paint to give the pictures a very subtle aging. Then I used Mod Podge to glue the pictures to the bowls of the spoons and the bottom of the fork.

Give each piece 1-2 coats of Mod Podge to seal.

Use Outdoor Mod Podge for a waterproof garden stake!

Button Tack Tutorial

Well, my fancy new bulletin board is looking so pretty that I just couldn't use plain old thumbtacks on it! So tonight I got crafty and made these button tacks to use, and they really add a nice touch! Here's a tutorial if you want to make your own. Look at me! I'm tutorial cuh-raazy!

To start, you'll need:

-thumb tacks

-buttons

-hot glue gun

-embroidery thread

-needle

-ribbons, rick-rack, other embellishments (optional)

This is a nice way to showcase your fanciest buttons!

To start, sew a few stitches of embroidery thread through your buttons. To do this, thread a needle, but don't tie a knot. Start stitching back-to-front, but don't pull your thread all the way through - leave a tail hanging off the back of the button. Sew a few Xs through the button, then finish up with the needle on the back. Use the tail you left in the beginning to tie off the loose ends, then trim.

Hot-glue a thumb tack to the back of each button. Press the tack down hard, and watch it to make sure it dries flat - the tacks kind of wanted to tip sideways, which would have made my finished tacks look wonky.

While gluing, you can also add snippets of ribbon, rick-rack, or whatever to make even fancier button tacks!

Let cool and dry, and you're all done!

Fabric Covers for Your Easter Baskets

I realize this tutorial is a bit last-minute, but I only finished this project myself moments ago! I like making Easter baskets for my family, but I only made it to the store this afternoon. Not surprisingly, the baskets were pretty picked over, and all that was left were the scraggly, el cheapo baskets.

Not to worry though! Here's a quick and super easy way to turn flimsy $1.99 baskets into personalized, homemade-ish baskets of goodness.

Here's what I started with:


My inspiration came from the fact that one of the baskets had this corny fabric cover on it, that was easily removed:

Take a moment to notice the seam allowance. On mine, it was 1/4" - you'll need to know this when you're sewing.

Once the cover was off, I picked apart all the seams:


So that I had three pieces, like this:


These pieces became my pattern pieces. Next, I pinned them to my fabric and cut new pieces:

I treated the lace on the originals like they were just part of the fabric, since I didn't want to add embellishments on my version (but wanted to keep the length).

I then sewed the pieces together exactly as they had been on the original, using that 1/4" seam allowance I noted earlier. I was happy to see that it fit my basket just right!


The last step was to sew on ribbons that I could use to tie the cover in place.

(You can see in this picture that I didn't exactly use my best sewing skills on this project. The point is QUICK though, right?? :) )

Now your basket is ready to fill with Easter goodies!

Baby Kitty just couldn't stay away from all those rolly eggs.

I made a second cover exactly as shown above, and used it to cover the outside of the other, smaller basket on the right (refer to the photo at the beginning of the tutorial to see the "before"). All you do is turn the cover right side out, set the basket inside, tuck the edges into the basket, and cover with Easter grass and goodies!


Happy Easter everybody!