Category: Crafting

Transforming Memories

If you’re a sentimental person, or living with one, you know what I’m talking about when I say that it’s near impossible to get rid of those things that are just sitting there collecting dust.

Whether it’s a shirt collection, old ratty blankets, or any other fabric textile, I’m going to show you how you can transform it and reuse it in a meaningful way. And the bonus is that your sentimental loved one gets to keep their memories at the same time!

In this instance I’m using the spare jerseys that I had from coaching this past season. My office space is limited and I really couldn’t keep them for some theoretical team use. Besides, my boys have already a small collection of jerseys from different teams they have played on. I need a game plan of what to do with them, in the event that certain men in my family can’t let them go.

Breaking Shirts Down

If you’ve taken a look through Pinterest, you’ve seen how people have made pillow cases out of shirts of loved ones who have passed on. You probably have seen, many years ago, where logos and decals of shirts have been broken down into quilting squares. What do you do if you really don’t want pillow cases (especially out of stained jerseys) and the material doesn’t lend itself to quilting (or you just don’t quilt)?

Cut the shirt down into a thin fabric strip, or yarn if you will.

The beauty of breaking shirts down into a fabric yarn is that you have so many options in front of you on how you want to use the shirts. You can crochet/knit with it, weave, braid and turn it into cordage (which then can be used in other crafting and practical projects like macramé or net making–trellis for garden, make a reusable bag, or anything your imagination takes you).

Whatever terminology you want to use for the strips of fabric, or future use, I’m going to move forward by talking about the material as yarn.

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How to Make Your Shirt Yarn

If you haven’t washed the shirt yet, and want to, make sure it’s washed and dried. If the shirt is stained from mud, grass, or anything else, don’t worry about it. As you will see in a moment, you will not see it when you finally work your yarn. If the shirt was stained by bleach, that’s not a problem either. Depending on the size of the bleach discoloration, it either won’t be noticed or it will add variegation to your yarn similar to the color variegated acrylic skeins of yarn you see in the store.

Lay your shirt out on a flat surface. The first shirt that I cut, I used my lap and the polyester stretched differently as I rotated the shirt as I cut. This made the lines uneven and rough. For the second shirt, I laid it out on my kitchen chair (you don’t have to have a crafting table to do this if you want to make yarn). My cuts were more uniform and with less jagged edges.

Don’t let your lack of cutting precision dissuade you from making yarn. If you find that you have little pennant like flags on your strips, when you crochet the yarn you will find that you have a textured look.

I started by cutting the bottom hem of the shirt. If you cut at a 90° angle, you will find that you have to cut on a slant to cut your next pass around the shirt. However, if you cut at a diagonal/45° angle, you will just circle around the shirt without noticing any change or needing to make adjustments.

The thickness of the hem is a great way of feeling out how thick to cut your shirt into yarn. It’s about 3/4″ to 1″ wide. I wouldn’t go any wider than that, especially if you have thick vinyl lettering on your jersey/shirt.

As you cut along the hemline, look how its width is in proportion to your hand. I looked at how it fit between my first and second knuckles. With this visual cue, I could cut the rest of the shirt and keep the width pretty consistent.

I chose to start cutting my yarn from the bottom of the shirt because it allowed me to find my cutting groove without having to worry about the neck line or the sleeves.

By the time that I got up to the sleeves, I felt out how I wanted to cut the shirt.

One option was to remove the sleeves entirely. I chose to leave my sleeves intact because I wanted to maximize the length of yarn that I got from my jerseys. The beauty of jerseys is that they’re made of polyester and when you cut through the shirt/sleeve seam, the fabric remains intact. (Cotton shirts may fall apart when you cut the seam.) So all I did was focus on keeping my yarn width and keep cutting up into the sleeve and back down into the shirt.

There does come a point where the sleeve separated and opens up and you can’t go directly back into the shirt body. At this point I just turned the fabric so that I turned the rest of the sleeve into yarn before joining back up into the shirt body.

The neckline is also an odd point to cut around. What you want to do us keep thinking and focusing on keeping the width of your yarn. You can cut through the neck hem and there’s not going to be any issues. The jersey’s neckline stays intact on the seam.

Once you get to the end, you will more than likely find a funky end. Just keep your width, cut around corners and finish off the shirt. It will look like a spiral, but it won’t affect your project at all.

With your shirt cut down into one long strand of yarn, you can trim off any large triangular flaps that you see. Or you can wait to do any trimming until after you started working with the yarn.

I chose not to do any trimming until after I crocheted my yarn. Even though I had several flags on both balls of yarn, I only ended up cutting off three triangles. And those ones were about as long as my pinky when the yarn was unworked–just as a point of reference.

For storing your yarn, or prepping to go right into a project, go ahead and roll your yarn into a ball. Each yarn ball was smaller than the whole shirt folded. So even if you’re looking to save space, and not start your project yet, it is well worth prepping your shirts ahead of time into yarn.

Starting the T-Shirt Yarn

You can choose to start the t-shirt yarn the same way as you would with acrylic yarn. If you want to avoid a large knot, you can do this.

Double over the end of the yarn. Over the crease cut down the middle. When you open the yarn back up you will see that you have cut a hole in the yarn. From here you can choose to thread the yarn through the cut hole to make your first loop. Or you can treat this cut hole as your framework to start a circle or square block.

When you are finished with one ball and want to join your next one, you also have a couple options.

One option is that you cut a loop into the end of your next ball of yarn. The tail of the ball that is coming to the end, cut so you have two ends that you can tie into the loop you just cut into the next ball of yarn. (In the case of polyester, your knot is going to be small, so it will disappear as you work through the transition.)

Another option is that you cut a loop into the tail of the ball that is coming to an end. Thread the beginning end of the new ball through this loop. Make sure that you pull enough thread through so that your first couple of crochet/knit stitches are the doubled over yarn. (This minimizes the potential of a visual knot. However these stitches will be thicker than the ones on either end; from the end of the old ball and the addition of the new ball.)

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Potential Projects

As I mentioned earlier, once you have your yarn made there are countless projects you can make. If you can crochet, knit, weave, or make cordage you can use this yarn for all those projects.

I don’t have nearly enough jerseys to make the one I want, a Christmas Tree Skirt. (I will just add to what I’ve started as jerseys become available. My kiddos are pretty fascinated by this and so I have no doubt that I’ll have their old jerseys before much longer.)

Before I leave you to start creating, I wanted to show you how this yarn works. You saw that the front of the jersey had about a third of the front covered by sponsorship decal. The back also was half covered by the jersey number and sponsorship as well.

As you can see here, for as much white vinyl was on the jersey, in the end it’s just speckling. The thicker chunks of white are from the large jersey number from the back. You can even see the tips of the smaller pennant edges sticking out. Those can easily be trimmed back for a smoother appearance. Or they can be left to add texture and whimsy to your project.

Just so you’re not discouraged, the vinyl they use is difficult to work with. It did pucker as I crocheted. (You see how much it sticks out on the edges.) But as you continue to work your yarn it starts to lie more flat and incorporates itself into the piece.

Note: I didn’t use a standard crochet hook for this. I used a weeding hook (for when I cut my own vinyl) that has a handle that about as thick as my finger. Especially working with yarn that has stiff vinyl, it’s easier to manipulate when you use a thicker hook.

Hopefully this 10″ x 10″ square (made from one youth size S and one youth size M jersey) gives you an idea and even inspiration for what you might make with this kind of yarn. You could mix and match jersey colors into your project or make squares to color coordinate your project in a more analytical framework.

Be sure to comment below and post pictures of what you make using this kind of yarn!

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More Than Arm Candy

I have to love my husband who loves to give practical gifts. Usually he stays away from gifting flowers because they last for a few days before they’re composted. However, there are so many uses for not just roses but other flowers as well. While I’m going to be talking about roses here, there are so many other flowers that can be used in the exact same way!

For those who are unaware, roses are edible. (Before you do eat rose petals, make sure that they haven’t been sprayed with chemicals, pesticides, insecticides, or anything else that is harmful to you.) Roses contain vitamins A & C, Niacin, Potassium, Iron, Calcium, and Phosphorus. Some places where you’ll find fresh petals are on a dessert/cake or in beverages such as teas.

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It’s not just the petals that are usable to our bodies. Rose hips (the bulb at the bottom of bud, harvested at the end of the rose season from the rose bush) is used in the beauty industry and baby products for the benefits it has to the skin.

The benefits to the skin is the primary reason why I decided from this last bouquet of roses that was given to me that I was going to use the petals for my next batch of soap.

I started making soap because I’m not okay with all the chemicals that are being used in soaps in the commercial market. Other than using soap dyes (which I’ve had my tub and skin discolored from bath bombs and other products) the mission I’m on is finding natural dyes to color my soap. For pink soap, I’ve seen soap makers use dyes or French clay.

Now Calendula is a well known floral natural food grade colorant. For red/pink colorant, Beets can be used in food. But anyone who’s worked with beets knows that your skin and clothes can be discolored. So I wanted to find a different red/pink colorant for my soap that I can grow in my garden. So I came to roses.

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How to Process Roses

There’s two easy ways of doing this.

The first is to hang the roses upside down to slowly dry them out. The benefit of this method is that all the vitamins and natural compounds that our bodies benefit from are at a higher concentration when they are dried at a low temperature and slowly.

Ideally, the most benefit would come from using the petals fresh. And while it is possible to use fresh ingredients in soap making (I make orange colored soap using pumpkin puree), there’s no way of breaking down the petals for a smooth and consistent colorant unless you want to use a blender and puree it with the water content of your soap. While it’s not a bad idea, unless you grow roses year round (which I don’t) you have a limited supply due to the window of fresh flowers available. (This is the reason why dried petals are best for me.)

This drying method is slow and takes time. Also any white component will yellow as it dries out. This can affect your over all final color depending on which rose you use. With the red rose, not so much. But the other two, the tinge will be noticible.

So there’s the second method, using a dehydrator.

The benefit from using a dehydrator is that petals are finished drying in about 24 hours (at 90°F, the lowest setting on my dehydrator) and their colors are only affected by growing darker.

As you can see here, the white component on the pink flowers have not discolored too much. This is great because when I turn these petals to powders, I’ll retain a pink like quality.

Before I move on to finishing these petals, I want to mention that if you want to make a natural confetti for cake decorations or throwing for a party/wedding celebration, all that you need to do is crush your dried petals by hand and store them in an air tight container (like a lidded glass jar) to prevent them from rehydrating due to humidity in the air.

As you can guess, with the fact that there were lavender inner petals on the second rose (the one with the variegated pink and white outer flowers), this is the reason why I blended in the red petals with the pink ones, to keep the pink and stop the transitiontoward purple (although I’m not opposed to purple soap.)

To make Rose Powder, all you need to do is put the crushed petals into a coffee or herb grinder and run it until you get the consistency that you are looking for. Because I’m looking to make a colorant for my soap and don’t want to have flower chunks in it, I took the powder down to a very fine grind.

The fun part about Rose Powder is that you’re not limited to use it as a natural dye or colorant. You could dust this on the icing of a confectionary dessert. If you want to make pink pasta, use this powder as part of your dry ingredients. Mix the powder with a sugar or salt and you have a pink sugar or salt rim to your favorite beverage.

No matter what celebration you have coming up, keep this idea in mind. If you want to dress put your Easter cup you can make a sugar rim using all sorts of different colored edible flowers. Calendula gives you yellow/orange, Violets blue/purple, Hibiscus yellow/orange/pink/blue/purple, there are so many other flowers. If you want to see a quick list of different edible flowers, here’s a jumping of point here.

What unique way do you use flowers?

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Space Saving Spring Decor

Depending on the space you’re looking to decorate for spring and Easter, you might find that you want a little sparkle in a small place. Maybe it’s a window ledge, a office desk corner, a mantel piece, or just a side table. This is something quick that you can put together and adds as much or little color as you like. The best part is that with the exception of glue drying time, you can have this project done in under an hour!

Materials Needed:

  • Clear Glass Salad Plate
  • Clear Glass Cylinder Container (with lid)
  • Glitter (color of choice)
  • Glitter Glue (complementary color)
  • Elmer’s Glue
  • Paint Brush
  • Paper and Wire Decor Eggs
  • Tall Candles (colors of choice)
  • Fairy Lights (optional)
  • Polycyclic or Clear Acrylic Spray Paint (optional)
  • Vinyl Decals/Stickers (optional)
  • Silk Flowers (optional)

Everything you see here I sourced at my local dollar store, with the exception of my Elmer’s glue and polycyclic. Hello mom of young children here! I found that I’m least likely to cry with accidents when I buy things from the dollar store. And accidents happen.

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Let’s Make It

Jar Stand

This one is a multifunctional component. I’m showing you how this holds a decor item, the paper and wire eggs. Instead of the eggs, you can use the plate for treats. Or you can set the plate aside and use the jar as a plate holder for part of your Easter Brunch.

  1. Inside the glass jar paint in your glue in the bottom portion of the jar. I used a yellow glitter glue to complement the green glitter. When using glitter glue, it’s important to pat the glue on your project and not paint it on. This type of glue does not have the holding power that Elmer’s glue has. I chose to stop the glue a little over halfway up the jar and stroke upwards to create a grass like effect. If you want to use Elmer’s glue you’ll have a little better control over the glue and a quicker dry time. Just make sure to add a little secondary color of glitter into your original glitter choice. This will give dimension to your color and keep it from becoming flat looking.
  2. Dump a good portion of glitter into the bottom of your jar and swirl it around on top of the glue. For the sides of the jar, I turned and tilted the glitter from the bottom of the jar down toward the mouth. I also hit the sides as I turned the jar, so that with it came to knock out all the excess glitter, there was very little that came out.
  3. Allow to thoroughly dry.
  4. You may find that you need a dry loose bristle brush to brush out some stray glitter that likes to stick to the clear glass.
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Egg/Treat Plate

In order to keep this plate safe for treats, make sure to apply the glitter to the underside of the plate. This makes the face hand washable.

  1. Apply a thin layer of Elmer’s glue to the area of the plate that you want to add the glitter. For me, I love the silver coloring of my jar’s lid and want that to shine up through the bottom of the plate. So I only applied glue to the lip of the plate.
  2. Sprinkle glitter over the wet glue. The more thorough you are on the shaking off of excess glitter makes the final step easier to apply without lifting the glitter.
  3. Once the Elmer’s glue is dry, seal in the glitter with polyclinic sealant or clear acrylic spray. This is an important step if you want to make sure that you won’t leave glitter trails when handling the plate. If you choose to use polycyclic, you want to tap the sealant on instead of brushing. Brushing actually ends up stripping glitter off of the glass. If you tap it on, the only glitter that comes off is whatever is loose to start with. If you’re like me and want to minimize the amount of glitter loss, clear acrylic spray is perfect. There is no loss. Plus the acrylic spray has the additional bonus of retaining the sparkle of the glitter more.
  4. Allow to thoroughly dry.
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Assemble the Accessories

For my display I chose to go with the multi colored paper and wire eggs and different pastel colors of tall candles. This is where even more personalization can happen. If you have rattan balls, you can use those here and keep with white candles to keep a clean minimalistic look. (In this instance a white frosted paint or white glitter might be your choice of decorating the jar and plate.)

For the candles, if you choose to go the color route, you can mute the colors by frosting the outside of the glass.

Or perhaps you have ribbon from other decor you already have up. You can hot glue a band of that ribbon around the candle.

For this set, I’m going to apply vinyl decals onto the glass. Also I’ll apply a decal on the jar.

Coming back to the jar, you might choose to further decorate the inside. Perhaps you want to add battery powered tea or short pillar lights. Maybe you love fairy lights. (For this one I would recommend hot gluing the switch the bottom side of the lid. This allows you to turn on the light just by lifting the lid and not having to fish for the switch on the bottom of the jar.) You could be a flower person. You could arrange your favorite silk flowers inside. Combined with fairy lights could be very dreamy looking. I think I’m going to have to find where I stashed my silk butterflies. The wing span is about 6″ and I could arrange 1 or 2 butterflies on the inside and have a little whimsy on the inside of my jar.

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Put It All Together

Even with all the different ways of personalizing this project, it’s all going to take on a different life depending on how you will set this up. Will you use a colorful table runner? Or maybe you’ll display this set with absolutely no further modification. I can totally see the white frost, rattan balls, white candles set on a reclaimed wood side table.

How will you set this up in your home?

Vinyl Decal designs can be found here:

Easter Candles (Decal)

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Words That Last

I’m coming up on the end of my first season coaching basketball and I couldn’t let this moment pass without sharing some of what I’ve learned. And also share the thoughts that I wished I could have talked with my dad about.

Before I can share what I’ve learned I have to go further back. (And we get there, I’m sharing the photos of the craft that I made for my basketball boys. Directions to make this, or an alternate, are below.)

My dad was my first coach, my most favorite one. But he didn’t become a good coach on his own. He learned from one of the best, Coach Carter. He wasn’t one of the really blessed to play directly under the amazing wisdom of Coach Carter, but he was able to attend some of the basketball clinics that Coach put on for other young men. There were only select memories that my dad shared with me from his youth, but this season of his life he was very proud to pass on.

Even without the stories, I would have seen the fingerprint of Coach Carter on my dad. It wasn’t just playing Basketball in its purest form. More importantly, Coach Carter taught my dad how to value even the weakest and overlooked player on the team. For Coach Carter and my dad, there were no bench warmers. If you were on the team, you had a role to play on the court.

The most profound thing about this way of thinking is to watch over the years about how this shaped young men’s lives.

Once I went into Junior High (Middle School by today’s terminology) my dad was no longer my coach. He tried, but there were no openings. But he was able to get position as a boy’s team coach. Fortunately for me, the boys and girls teams played in different seasons. So even though I didn’t get to play on my dad’s teams, I gave up my free time to help my dad run his practices. Yes there were looks when I tried to help out boys my age during practice. That meant I ended up being a silent assistant.

While I did feel the sting of rejection about not having my knowledge accepted because I was a girl, I pivoted away from that and just learned more from my dad. I kept going to practices. I kept chasing balls and running drills. I wasn’t going to be shut out from something that was a part of me.

It took two seasons before I got to see the difference that a coaching style can make on the health of a team. The varsity coach was good, but he never had with his boys what my dad had with his junior varsity boys. On the varsity team the weakest player saw the least amount of playing time. Often times, those players were unsatisfied and felt rejected even by their own team member because they were the weakest link.

That wasn’t the case with my dad’s team. I watched the more skilled players still groan at the weakest links. But my dad refused to give up on them. He knew that he could make them better. And he did. The whole team had to work as a team, there was no exception. He gave more one on one attention to the weaker players. It was an investment. And it paid off.

There was one young man who wanted to quit the team because he knew he was the weakest link. But dad refused to give him an out. He helped him through his head space and built him up, until he could find self value. And once that young man found his self value, the team also valued him. To be fair, the team saw the potential in him before he saw it in himself.

What made that happen?

A coach who refused to give up on one of his boys. He kept calling out all the positive. Dad could see it deep down in him. After a little time, the rest of the team saw the skills deep down in him as well. They rallied behind him, encouraged, and cheered him on. With all this encouragement from his coach and team mates, the young man saw in himself what others saw in him. And he had a breakthrough that I hope has had lifelong results.

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There was one other memory, of my dad’s coaching, that has stuck with me all these years.

One of my dad’s strong players transferred to a new school and he earned a place on the varsity team! We were so excited for him. And even though he didn’t have to do it, daddy rallied the whole team together and we all went to watch this young man play in a varsity game. It meant the world to him. His basketball family was in the audience cheering him on.

The problem was that the coach had a different philosophy in coaching. I won’t go into the details of that game. But afterward, we rallied behind our family and dad spoke one more time into his life. I don’t remember the words that dad said. But I do remember watching a young man buried under the weight of shame and disappointment. When dad was finished he was able to once again smile and hold his head up.

This was my Coach.

This is the type of coach that I want to be.

Back in January I welcomed my first team, 1st and 2nd grade boys.

From my own teaching experience I know that kids always perform better when you aim for the moon and allow them the space to pick up as much skill as they can on their own. For one, there’s always at least one kid who has higher skills than the rest of the team/group. If they’re not challenged, they can cause problems or they give up. The kids with the least skill sometimes feel overwhelmed by everything presented to them, but they don’t know that they can’t learn any of this. With the right teacher, a kid can learn anything because the adult believe that they can.

My first day of coaching, I didn’t know what I wanted to teach because my knowledge is strategizing at the middle school and high school level. So I opted out with teaching basketball terms and positions. None of these things were on the list or rules for this age group. But I didn’t want to coach at this age group. I didn’t want to dummy down this beautiful sport. I wanted the boys to be challenged and love the game that I grew up loving.

What was interesting was watching the parents during that first practice. Normally parents sit on the sidelines and talk or get caught up on work or personal items on their phone. Instead, I had the parent’s attention as well. Afterward, my husband told me that the parents were commenting that they were exciting because their kids were going to actually learn something this year.

This season I exposed them to using both hands, layups, screening, positions and a few other things. The point was never to get them to be proficient. I knew they wouldn’t. My whole goal was to get them to train their bodies in what it feels like to do certain skills. And in several years time, when it’s time for them to join a team that they have to try out for, and it matters, the skills that will be demanded of them at that point will already have a seed planted in them now. I took this year to set them up for success for another coach in the future.

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But what I didn’t think I would have to encounter this early is the whole issue of the boys already picking out who were the skilled players and who should be treated as bench warmers. As a Parks and Rec team, everyone is supposed to have the same amount of play time–which is how I think it should be anyway. But the boys took it in their own hands, during games, to pass to the strong players only.

And this was where I wish my dad were still here to tell me how he got his team to be unified as a team. This isn’t something that all coaches know how to navigate and do it well. But my dad did. My only clues are what I have in my memories, but it doesn’t share light on his thoughts or capitalize on what he tried that went wrong.

If anyone is wondering about the answer to this issue, so far my best results have come from just the simple foundation of having a relationship with the boys. The fact that they feel valued makes it easier for them to see the team weaknesses (we own it all together instead of singling someone out) and problem solve. And giving them the options to problem solve gives them ownership of the team.

I’m sad that I’m losing a few boys next year. But I’m excited to look forward to having the boys request to be on my team again next year.

There’s no guarantee that I’ll get them back next year. All that I have is this moment in time.

So as a parting gift, I’m passing on a tradition from my parents.

Whenever dad coached out teams, my mom always crafted something that everyone got to take home. (I grew up in a generation where trophies were given to celebrate a few players. And only everyone took a trophy home when the team had a winning season.) One year mom made a felt pennant with the team name on it. (I still have it in a memory box.)

For my boys, I made stickers through the season, marking new skills that the boys learned. On the front of the chalkboard wall hang, the boys can keep their stickers like boy scouts badges. On the back I’m leaving a final message for the boys that they can look back on and see that they have had a coach in their corner. My goal is that no matter who coaches the boys in the future, they continually have a voice in their head cheering them on.

The perfect thing about this project is that it isn’t something that is just sports related. I know some teachers who give their students and end of the year present. Also, as a parting word to their students as they move on past their class room.

If this is something you would like to make for a child in your life, here is what I did.

What you Need:

  • 6″ x 6″ Square Chalk Board (I found these ones at the Dollar Store)
  • Decorative Duct Tape (I found this holographic red at the Dollar Store in the Automotive aisle)
  • Black Chalk Paint
  • Permanent Vinyl
  • White Acrylic Paint Pen
  • Transfer Tape
  • Scissors
  • Paintbrush
  1. Paint the sides and back of the chalk board black (or any other color of choice).
  2. Apply the Decorative Duct Tape. The width of the tape covers the front, top, and top half of the back boarder. You can apply another strip of tape that I did or paint all the way up the back of the board.
  3. On the front of the chalk board place your decorative elements. (In this instance, I did the team name and season year.)
  4. On the back you can write your encouraging message. ( I also added the boy’s name so that they knew it was a message specific for them and not shared with the rest of the team.)

There are so many ways to make alternates of this.

  • You can mod podge on photographs on the front or back.
  • Have young children make a mother’s day painting.
  • Attach miniature clothes pins.
  • Attach metal strip on the top, bottom, or side to make a partial magnetic feature

If you are privledged to have children under your influence so that you can pour life into them, I hope that you are inspired by this project. A gift with modest materials can be transformed to be uplifting for years to come!

If you are a basket ball coach and are looking for stickers that you can make and pass on to your players, check out these designs!

Horse Winner

Lay-Up

Screen Time

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Bless This Garden

This year I’m working in concert with others in a garden. (I am so excited for this!) If you’re as busy as I am, you can imagine how quickly things slip through the cracks.

After hitting my local dollar store, I found some pieces that are going to make an inexpensive tool that doubles as home decor, all the while keeping tabs on what’s been done.

With these I decided to make a magnetic board where anyone tending the garden can quickly mark what they did.

I know the galvanized finish tends to overtake everything. So with the galvanized frame and banner, everything gets lost real quick. Not to mention that the frame was a really bad fake wood. To dress all this up a bit and minimize the galvanized look, I painted the frame and banner black.

I forgot to take a picture of the banner painted in flat black chalk paint (the same paint as the frame). It looked too minimalistic for my taste, so I took the transfer tape (which I used to apply the vinyl text) and put it straight onto the paint. Some places lifted the paint quite easily. But to get the distressed look, I scratched the tape

The magnets needed a little something extra. There are so many things that could be done. I have children and they’re helping with this garden and they’ll also be marking what we do when we work, so I went into kid zone and painted the magnets with acrylic paint and did all the colors.

If you want to keep minimalistic, pick your favorite color.

Love things that sparkle, glue on gem stones or use glitter.

What about texture? Glue on fuzzy pom poms, baby pine cones, large seeds or nuts… literally whatever catches your imagination. Maybe you have a farm and want to use small farm yard figures and animals. (I wish I had these in my craft room!!!)

Something that is great about using the galvanized banner is that the extra magnets can be kept on the banner so you can add stickers, personalization, more tasks, or a note section in the blank space on the bottom.

And then while typing I decided to go a different direction.

I pulled these out! Last year I made carrots out of my corn cobs. And I brought out the wooden beads from my drawer (which I also got from my local dollar store).

With the beads I removed them all from the string they came on and noted how they tied off the end bead to keep them all on the string. This “knot” that they used was how I spaced the beads further apart on the string.

Once I made those changes, the colorful “polka dots” needed to change. The gold and green glitter styrofoam balls simplified the overwhelming colors.

Even with the new modifications hanging, I’m not satisfied with the final color scheme. And sometimes that happens when you’re creating. You start building from the image you see in your head and make a change here or there and an earlier idea you loved just doesn’t work anymore.

The black isn’t working anymore. I loved the idea to begin with because it was a nice basic color that goes with where I was going to hang this. But it’s just not working anymore.

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First thing first, I need to lighten up the banner. So I’ll be distressing it heavily so that the majority of the galvanized metal will show through. With the addition of the carrots, which obviously take the spotlight, I can bring out a lot more of that metal and the metal is not going to overtake and make everything else hide.

But before I do that, I need to decide what I’m going to do with the frame and that’s going to take a few days of looking at it to see where I want to go. At the moment, I’m leaning toward the idea of painting on white striped and creating a plaid hand painted design on it. If I go that route, I might keep the banner predominately black still and incorporate that same design element into parts of the banner.

Stay tuned to see what I finally decide!

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And I’m going to leave you here in this moment just because sometimes the right thing is to take a step away from a project and let it tumble around in your brain. You don’t always have to have the answer right away. And you don’t always have to have things done in an hour.

Perhaps it’s convenient to have an idea presented to you in a finished state.

But I’m going to leave you here with your own thoughts. Because I know someone has that inner voice screaming, “You need to ____!”

Go ahead and leave that comment below.

Or better yet, use that idea to make your own magnetic board for your daily tasks, your children’s chore board, a classroom helper sign, your regular “Honey Do” list, or that board that I didn’t mention but you just got the idea for.

And when you’re finished, send me a picture so that I can see what you came up with.

Happy Crafting!

Want to have the cut file for Bless This Garden, click here.

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