Rainbow-Dipped Wooden Spoons

This is a great and quick gift for people who are just starting out in a new home.  When I saw it over at A Pretty Cool Life I knew I had to do it.  And maybe even jazz up my own wooden spoons while I was at it, though at present I only own two. You can never have too many spoons (especially when you’re entertaining and all is chaos), and these bright and shiny ones are a great accent for any kitchen.

So you need some spoons, wooden ones. The Pie and I picked these up at Winners for a reasonable price. We did two sets, six spoons each. And you need some craft paint. We had six spoons, so we picked up six colours. We went with Martha Stewart Crafts™ Multi-Surface Satin Acrylic Paint.  It had a nice finish, was easy to apply, and is guaranteed to be non-toxic and food safe.  And if you let it cure for 21 days, then you can pop these babies in the dishwasher with no worries.

I gave the spoons a quick sand with some fine-grade sandpaper to get some of the splinters and rough edges off.  Then I measured to see where I wanted the paint to go.  These self-healing cutting mats also make great ruler-like work surfaces.

Then I used masking tape along the line I measured and pressed it down securely to make sure the paint wouldn’t bleed under.

These are my own wooden spoons here.  I originally wanted to do a set of stripes forming a rainbow on each handle, with them being the reverse of each other, so I blocked off 1″ increments for my stripes, figuring I could do a few colours at a time.  Conveniently, my masking tape is also 1″ thick.

I wedged the spoons in plastic cups with some rocks in the bottom for stability.  This way they can dry properly without touching anything else.

Then I set up my palette in an old pie pan.  Re-use, re-use, re-use!

Then I painted.  It was easy.  Leave an hour between coats to make sure it dries properly.  I ended up doing three coats on the spoons I was giving away, though I only did one coat on my own spoons.

When I took the tape off my own spoons in order to mask off the already painted sections, I decided I liked the stripes just as they were.

And if you put the spoons together it forms a rainbow!

And of course the other spoons are raring to go, just waiting for their requisite 21 days of curing.

If you have a glass utensil holder, you can put them handle-side-down.

Or if not, have them handle-side-up.

Either way, they’re a cheery addition to my kitchen.  Can I keep them?

Advertisement

Deathtrap Defeated

***EDIT: Check out this fun bookshelf organization video.  Trust me, it’s more entertaining than it sounds.***

This is my mother’s kitchen bookcase.

As you can see, anyone who chooses a book from any of these shelves runs the risk of becoming imperiled by falling books.

I sat my mother down and made her go through all her books the other day.  My style of organization is purpose-oriented.  The stuff you use, you keep somewhere in the open.  The stuff you don’t use, you either get rid of or you put it in storage.

So anything that my mother hadn’t used in the last six months went into a pile to go into the basement.  It will be her job to sort through it on her own time to decide what she wants to keep and what she can give away.

A much smaller pile of books went straight to a second-hand shop.

This stuff got recycled.

This is what remains, which I sorted by type.

Then of course I got to dust the shelf in a rare state of emptiness.

So of course what is on the top shelf are the books we use the most: Joy of Cooking, family recipe books, the usual.  Also books on baking, just because that’s what I’m doing a lot of these days.

Here we have the all-round cookbooks, ones that cover full meals and a variety of dishes.

Here is the Brazilian version of a Dutch oven, and more all-round cookbooks.

Here are the slow-cooker books and the specialty books, ones that deal with specifics, like marrow bones, pasta, or dumplings.

On the bottom we have soup books and barbecue books, as well as some binders for collected clippings.

Now remember: just because there is empty space here doesn’t mean you have to fill it!