Makers Gonna Make Ruler Holder

This quick little project was made for a challenge over on Lettuce Craft.  My dear friend Emma, aka sheepBlue, ran a challenge on the Decorative & Functional Board, asking folks to repurpose an item that they would normally throw out from lack of use, or wear and tear.  A few weeks ago I bought some new silicone kitchen utensils, and they came with a rather ugly holder, in bright teal plastic.  I knew I'd never use it, and tried to think of ways to repurpose it, but failed, so it went into the recycling.  Look how boring it was!

Fast forward to Friday, when I was cleaning the house.  I was putting away some stray bits and bobs in my studio, and I noticed the canister I had my tall rulers in.  It was a repurposed pirouette cookie tin, that I had covered in scrapbook paper to match my craft room/husband's office, back when we lived in Bowling Green 6 years ago.  The colors no longer match my space, and it's lightweight, and prone to tipping over.  Brain wave!  Go grab the utensil holder out of the recycling, and give it a makeover.

The cut file came from the Silhouette design store, and it had lots of cute little stars all around it.  Sadly they did NOT want to transfer with the text.  But that's fine.  I kinda like the cleaner look without them.  And here it is, corralling rulers, and keeping the little felt Scotsman company.

Rainbow Sun Catcher for My Porch

After making a set of Antique Silverware & Key Wind Chimes for my mom for Mother's Day, I had a lot of bits and bobs that I had pulled out for it on my work desk, so yesterday I set about turning them into something.  I had 4 smaller prisms, and 1 larger one, that I decided to turn into a sun catcher for my porch.  I didn't want the crystal prisms to knock into one another, so I staggered the lengths of beading wire I used to string them.  I used a wide mouthed canning jar band as the base, and some chain to suspend it.

After getting the prisms in place, the piece felt a bit bare, so I added some old key charms that have been in my stash for years.  I bought them to use in jewelry, but when I ordered them the listing didn't note that they had bible verses on them, and I'm not religious, so they were just gathering dust.  After that I added some teardrop crystals in a rainbow of 8 colors.  Strands of a single color felt a bit sedate, so I ended up rotating the colors in each row, so the rainbow sort of swirls around the piece, mirroring the swirling length of the prisms.  Since a pair of wind chimes I had on the porch had recently fallen apart, I already had a spot just waiting for this piece.