Busy, busy, busy and loving it!

I have been very busy since right around Thanksgiving and am finally slowing down. This Christmas I am making all the gifts and am loving it. I am really proud of how my latest project has turned out so far although it's not quite finished. My daughter and son-in-law are trying their hands at container gardening (until they get a place that's really theirs to plant a patch of earth) and for his gift I am making garden stakes. I looked up how-to's online and finally came up with an idea that's my own. (My daughter did give some input.)

First, I downloaded several fonts. 
My son-in-law has a blog named "Quest for the Hobbit Life", about their gardening pursuits so the fonts I searched for had to do with Hobbits and I found plenty. The one I chose is called Hobbiton Brushhand from this site.

After deciding on the font, I printed out the veggie names in a 3x5 format because I thought I'd do the stakes with the cards laminated and stapled to the top of the sticks. (Sticks are paint stirrers I got free at my local hardware store.) After consulting my daughter, we decided to directly print the names on the sticks. This took a little ingenuity on my part, trying to figure out how to get the font I chose onto the stick.



 



I used a black template pencil and rubbed the back of the paper with the veggie name on it.

Then with a mechanical pencil (sans lead) I traced the letters onto the stick. The sticks are made of a soft wood and took the tracing very well.

Next, I used a calligraphy pen to trace over the indentations the tracing left. And voila!

I then got my handy-dandy exact-o knife and whittled a point on the opposite end.













I plan on using a polyurethane coat over it all because, even though my calligraphy pen says "waterproof", I need to make sure these will weather well.


Other crafty things I've been working on are coasters made from leftover 4x4 tiles and photos or scrapbook paper.

One set I did for a friend. They could never find coasters with a V on them.

 Made 4x4 template in Word and typed in the letters and or clip-art then printed on scrapbook paper. 

L O V E 

 In process, (now finished) with photos I had taken of some lovely country scenery. Painted the edges of the tiles to match coloring. Used paint samples ($1) from Home Depot.