Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Decoupaged silverware for memorials

My sister had to put her 16 year old cat to sleep during a time when she was doing a kitchen remodel.  She was heartbroken by it all and I wanted to make her something to remember him by.  I decided to decoupage his photograph onto some old spoons I had gotten at auction.  
First I had a tiny spoon with praying hands.  I thought this one would be perfect for a memorial.  I measured the space for the picture then I cropped the photo in Photoshop.  I  printed it out on plain typing paper and then modge podge or decoupage the photo to the spoon.  Very simple.  I did the same thing with a bigger table spoon only I did it on the back side of the spoon and I stamped LOVE at the top.  To the larger spoon I also applied a crackle surface and wiped in some distress ink to the cracks.  To finish out the project I took a silver fork and heated it so I could bend it and make it more decorative.  I also stamped it to say "our Stormy" (which was her kitty's name) however, I did mess up my O (in the "our") a little bit as during my stamping the fork shifted and I had double stamped. :(   I used a Sharpie and turned the lettering black and this helped to hide that  mess up a bit.  

I thought she could use the fork either to hang in the kitchen or use as a grave marker.  I was going to give her some heavy duty magnets in case she wanted to display any of these as refrigerator magnets but she chose to hang them beside her new kitchen window.  She did have her husband drill a hole in the top of the larger spoon in order to hang it.  Overall I think they turned out really nice.  You could add some background paper or book text if you wanted something other than the silverware showing.  

This would be good for people memorials, especially people that liked to cook.  I could see doing it with cookbook pages as a background and then have a photo of my grandma, who loved to cook.  Just a thought.  Hope this inspires you!