From The Garden... To The Butter Knife

By now you have all figured out that "I must not like to relax ever" or creating is my form of relaxation. I have created these little European flea market pretties because the gardens are starting to bloom and that's when we love to start filling up all those pretty little flower vases throughout our homes as if we just made a trip to our favorite florist. I am going to explain and show you some of the silver bud vases I have created out of the handles of vintage silver flatware knives.

The fun part is rummaging the flea markets, thrift stores, yard sales, and gathering up your odd matching butter or flatware knives to start creating. When you have a nice selection of them it is time to go to work. You will want to use a good gripping pair of pliers, holding tight to the handle of the knife and with the pliers you will wiggle back and forth the tip of the knife until you have loosened it enough to pull it out. When you have accomplished this small task, that is if you want to look at it that way, you will want to then use an ice pick or tool of this sort to dig out the compound inside the handle of the knife. The compound holds the tip of the knife in place to secure the handle, you may happened to have gotten a knife or two that are already hollow and if that happens you will say to yourself, why can't they all be made like this. The compound will crumble out like hard plaster, you will dig and probe until you have a hollowed out handle and this is really not as hard as it sounds.

When you have the handle hollowed out you will want to cut the end off with a fine saw blade capable of doing this kind of cut, you may want to place it in a vice to saw through a bit more evenly. Some of the knives you may even be able to just cut the ends off if the blade does not continue deep into the handle, this makes your job a lot easier for you. This is why I mentioned you will want to get a nice selection of knives together for this project, due to the time and effort you have to put into making them, you will find it a lot more rewarding when you make a few at once then just one or two. The finishing touch is to drill a small hole at the top and only on one side careful drilling, so as to not accidently go all the way through to the other side. You only want one hole on one side so you can place a suction cap with the attached wire hook and threading the wire hook through the hole and suctioning the cap to a beautiful glass surface, you may also make a wire ring through the hole and hang it from a small hook on any surface you desire. The final step is your choice, you can fill the handle up with water for live flowers or leave it empty for a place to dry a small bundle of Lavender the way I have shown pictured.

I know this sounds like more then you want to tackle, but the joy of restyling vintage knife handles that have become a group of bud vases will become one of your favorites that you will be proud of. These silver wall pocket vases would be a great gift to give for Mother's day or a birthday, most of all a just because I adore you gift...I hope I have inspired you to go on the hunt for discarded flatware and breath new life into them.