As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for craft

Personalized housewarming gifts

by

Have you ever visited the online store Roland’s Housewarming Gifts?

The company originally began as a source of house closing gifts for real estate agents and it’s grown over time as a source of gifts for the public.

I think this site is the perfect place to find housewarming gifts. You know when someones just moved into their first home? You want to give them something that will help them make their new home their own. This often takes the form of some kind of personalized gift. Well, you can find all kinds of gift items to personalize at Roland’s housewarming Gifts.

For example they have some lovely personalized doormats to chose from, as well as address plaques that can be personalized, custom door mats, address signs, ceramic address plaques, beautiful crafted crocks which can also be personalized, house address signs, birdhouses, cookie jars, planters, mailboxes and other unique personalized gifts.

This is yet another site that I’m going to bookmark for future use. Check it out.






Reclaimed teak furniture

by

We have a hand crafted teak table. It’s made out of recovered or reclaimed teak. Since teak is a protected wood in many countries, yet still a product that many nations continue to rely on to fuel their economy some manufacturers of teak furniture have taken to using recovered teak wood. I really like the fact that this beautiful table that we purchased is made from reclaimed wood.

Our table was created out of what looks like thick teak branches that might have fallen to the forest floor, and perhaps part of a tree trunk – hopefully one that had been cut many years in the past.

It has a very irregular shape, but it’s absolutely beautiful.

I don’t have any good photos of it right now, but I’m going to be refinishing the table shortly so I’ll take some before and after photos so you can see how weathered it looks after sitting in my garden through the summer and how I rejuvenate it each year with a coat of danish teak oil.

I just went looking online to see if I could find anything quite like it so I could show you how beautiful my table is, but I was unsuccessful. I can’t believe how hard it was to find anything remotely similar.

Sometime this week I’ll get my sanding paper out and lightly rub down the table with some fine sand paper, clean it off with a tack cloth and then oil it. It’s almost like magic how beautiful the table looks after I give it this treatment that perhaps only takes an hour of my time.

Have you ever refinished furniture that you own? Or perhaps furniture that you’ve purchased used, or at a flea market that needs refinishing before it can really be put to good use?

Seashells can be used to create interesting decor accessories

by

My parents used to be what I’d call winter Texans. Yes, they were snowbirds, but instead of going to Florida like many of the other snowbirds they found a place to call a home away from home in Texas.

My mother liked to do various crafts while she was in Texas and she’d bring them home when they came back in the spring. She made decorative plant pots and even hanging patio lights.

However, my favorite types of things that she made were made with sea shells. She’d get nice glass wear and fill them with shells and believe it or not a pretty glass full of attractive shells is quite nice. She’d also use plain glass jars and glue shells to the outside. The jars could then have tea light candles inside them. This made simple yet attractive candle holders.

She also used shells and starfish to decorate the outside of plant pots. She wouldn’t cover the whole pot with shells, no, she’d just make an attractive pattern on the pot.

When I visited Quality Shells a few minutes ago, memories of my mother and her craft projects came rushing back to me. All those memories got me thinking that seashells, sand dollars and starfish could be used to create decorative items for table center pieces, or candle holders at weddings and other party settings, or then could be used as I’ve described my mothers use of them.

I have some shells that I just leave on top of a mantle piece. I like the look of them lying loose on the mantle. Their colorful shells catching my eye as I pass them during the day.

If you’d like to use shells for your own craft projects why don’t you visit Quality Shells and select some of their beautiful shells for your next project?

Meta