15-MINUTE VINTAGE FORK PROJECT

I had wanted to make something special for my hair stylist, Stephenie's recent birthday, and I had seen a great vintage fork craft on Mrs. Jenk's blog: A Little Birdie Told Me at her posts here and here. (If you haven't visited her blog yet, please check it out. She's sooooo creative!!!) The fork holds a recipe card, photo, or actually any card. Well, my hairdresser loves vintage like I do, so I thought it would make a great gift for her!

It's super easy to make (check out Mrs. Jenk's directions on her blog)....except for the bending of the fork. I first tried heating the fork in a low degree oven. But it turned out with a bit of an uneven bend, so that was a good excuse to keep that one for myself (hee! hee!). I used a background of Eiffel Tower scrapbook paper)! See below: So, the next day, I bought another frame and tried again. This time, at the suggestion of my creative hubby, I put the fork in a vise and then bent it. That was much easier, and I highly recommend that method. I put a few different pieces of scrapbook paper in her frame, so that Stephenie could change them out whenever she wanted. Here's what the finished gift looked like, with each of the different papers:

My favorite is the last one with the "words".

Another helpful tip I discovered AFTER I made the first one. Put a blank sheet of paper into the frame (or use the paper which came with the frame) and measure & mark the two spots in the center where you will want to glue down the fork. That way, when you start gluing, you don't worry about getting the fork centered after you already have glue on it, etc. By the way, I used E6000 glue, which worked great. Just let it dry overnight after you're done.

I found all the cute "foodie" scrapbook papers, as well as the Eiffel Tower paper at my favorite scrapbook store, The Crafty Scrapper, in Waxhachie, Texas. I don't even do scrapbooking, but I love buying papers, ribbons, brads, etc. in there for other projects. Here's another photo of the one I kept, this time shown with a card setting on the fork.

Dream big! Patti