So what? Sew buttons!

Here is a little tin decoupaged with images from a Little Golden Book of Walt Disney’s Bambi.These are such sweet pictures I knew they’d be just right for a baby gift.

I have to say I am not 100% satisfied with the way it turned out, in part due to the raised image right in the center. I always forget about that on these Ikea galvanized containers.

Anyway, I’m filling it with some sundries and I think it will be a nice baby gift. It’s always good to have a container around to put your stuff in!

I finally did the trash can for the baby’s room. I again used Happy Kitty Bunny Pony as my source and chose a page of little prints of old fashioned looking bunnies in baby clothes. The pictures are red and blue on a cream background. I cut them all apart and then glued them on in a diagonal, which looks especially cool when you see more than one side at a time. Because the basic trash can is plain white I thought it needed a bit of jazzing up and decided to add some paint. I did a flower on each side and tried to make it look sort of like those 60s-ish flowers (or possibly decals you used to put on your bathtub floor.)

Overall, I think it looks good! That’s two baby projects done and one to go…

Much like the “tin o’ tomatoes“, this is a tin with cut outs from Cooks’ Illustrated illustrations. In this case the tomatoes are the pictures. I made this last year for Porkfest ‘06, and here it is on display at Porkfest ‘07. A perfect little vessel for picnic cutlery!

At this point it probably seems like the only gifts I give are decoupage, but since I don’t want to have my whole house decoupaged it just makes sense to make things for other people. This is a recipe binder I made for my friend Schnookie. Not only does she like to cook and have her recipes in a notebook, but she is also a fan of pork and all pork products. Seriously, she makes pork and bacon kabobs, crown roasts with sausage stuffing, potatoes with lardons, etc. I think you get the picture. This awesome picture I chose for it came from a book filled with hilarious kitschy and terrible pictures. Look how happy this pig is to have himself cut in half to reveal the lovely ham steak inside him!  I hesitated for a long time about cutting into the book, but then decided that I certainly was getting pleasure out of it if I used it for this purpose.

Months ago my friend bought a new house and I am finally getting around to seeing it today. (I feel safe posting this even though she hasn’t received it yet because I know she never reads my blog!) I bought a tray to decoupage for her and thought this “vintage” postcard display would be perfect for her. The images come from a calendar (I really recommend Graphique De France calendars both for fun and then the following year when they are out of date, for decoupage). I think the scattered look is very nice and it should hold up to carrying drinks and dishes, though I probably wouldn’t put food directly on it. In addition to the Mod Podge I used a clear varnish on top to make the tray more durable. Once I read about some great project for trays where you poured Lucite-type stuff on top, but I have long since lost the article, so the varnish will have to do.

I’ve said “Cachepot”, but I think there is another phrase to describe these tall metal flower containers. Possibly French something? Anyway, you know what it is. A lovely tall container that looks great with a big mess of flowers in it. I bought a bunch at Ikea, knowing they would be good for decoupage. I think any of these metal containers look nice for a variety of things. This project was the first one I ever did. It came about because I had been cutting up gardening catalogs for a collage program I was doing at the library. I loved cutting out all these flowers and shrubs and then sorting them by color. When I saw what a lovely rainbow of flowers I had I thought it would look great against the metal and make a neat rainbow spiral. I sat in front of the tv painstakingly arranging my pictures, overlapping them, gluing them down, and could not have been prouder of the end of the result. I foolishly gave it away as a gift to my mother. Foolish for two reasons. 1. Because now I don’t have it and I still really like it. and 2. Because several months later I was at her house and saw it in the bathroom being used as toilet brush holder. My mother was not home at the time and I was tempted to just take it away with me and never say anything about I was so irritated it at being used like that. I never said anything but a couple months ago asked where it was because I wanted to take these pictures. She produced it (did not say where it had been) and ever since then it has been on display with flowers in it. I know we can’t dictate what happens to gifts after we give them, but honestly, a toilet brush holder? Ew!

A particularly nice and easy thing to decoupage is a small notebook. Everyone likes to have a little notebook to jot down grocery lists, thoughts, lists of books to read, etc., so they make nice little thoughtful gifts. This is one I made for my friend’s birthday. She is a quirky fun person and I thought she’d get a kick out of these bowling balls, especially the one named “Lady Grabber.” The images came from a calendar of vintage bowling ads we had last year and I liked the way they looked, little pictures floating on a clear cover.