Upcycled Hand trovel

We are still in the grip of a major heat wave that is supposed to last all week.  Today's forecast is for 108.  Definitely not stepping foot outdoors.  I got up early this morning while it was only 85 to water my potted plants.  Thank goodness for the drip irrigation because there is no way I could have watered everything by hand.

All this heat has left me with Sciatica pain in my left hip to the point I could barely walk yesterday.  Today I am doing everything to try to stay cool.

So, while cleaning out an old garden box last week I came across a few rusty old hand garden tools.

  My first thought was to toss them out, then I decided to see if I could make some use out of them.

I try not to throw anything into the landfill that can be re used for a new purpose.

Among them was a small rusty hand trowel.  The first thing I did after cleaning it off was to coat the entire piece with acrylic varnish and let that dry.  

A while back I saw a similar trowel partially painted and used as a memo holder for the garden on Pinterest.  That's it, that is what I decided to do with mine.

Here you can see where I partially painted the lower half.

Next using the hole in the end of the handle I threaded some tea dyed seam binding through the hole and attached a bulldog clip to hold notes or seed packets or whatever I need to remember for the garden.

 

I next went through my photo files and found a victorian lady with a few flowers in the picture, sized it on my computer to fit the trowel and printed the image on my laser printer.  Next I roughly tore the image from the paper in the shape of the trowel and adhered it to the trowel using Mod Podge.  I also sealed to surface of the image with more Mod Podge.

Then I wrote on a tag, "It's time to garden"  and added some dyed seam binding to the tag and clipped  it into the bulldog clip.

I tied some pink dyed seam binding around the handle and added 3 paper flowers I made from scrapbook paper.

Isn't she adorable?

Now I can hang this near the door leading to the garden with any note I need to remember for the garden chores.

This rusty little trowel has a new purpose and won't be thrown out for a very long time.

Happy Crafting!