The Seed Co. Hanging Planter

Shhhh...don't say anything... it's a gift.

One of my sisters had a birthday and I bombed on getting her gift to her on time. I'm working on making it to her before her birthday month ends.

These days, that's actually pretty good for me.

Despite the fact that I bought these containers so I'd have a go-to gift that I could whip up quickly, this ended up taking me all day! That's because although I used the same scrolly frame as I used on the last hanging pocket basket I did for my front door (See HERE), I couldn't very well give my sister one that said No. 444. That's not her address.

So the design and decision process began anew. The ideas are always what takes forever. I scoured the internet for some lettering that would look something like THIS that Mary, at homeiswheretheboatis.net showed off recently. I loved this look and tried copying the lettering, but that merely sucked about an hour or so of my life from me with a huge disappointment. Lettering is not my forte. I finally gave up trying to copy Mary's seed box lettering and looked for graphics in numerous places online, finally finding a colored seed packet I manipulated on the computer to get the words off it and to turn it into a black and white graphic. 

Another time sucker. Then I decided to add the tag line too. When all that was finally transferred and then painted, I realized I couldn't very well leave the top diamond shaped space empty and had to find a flourish that would go with the scrolly frame below. 

The day was dragging on...and on. I spent a long time trying and failing until I got a reasonable facsimile of the flourish I wanted.

The whole thing was sanded a bit and waxed.

A present needs a card, though, and it really needed to carry on the theme, so I searched again for something appropriate, found this somewhere online (I don't even know where, sorry!), printed it on card stock and wrote her a note. Done!

Not so fast!

Since I couldn't send flowers, the basket was looking so empty with just a card in the pocket, so with the few dollar bills I had on hand, I made some dollar blossoms by accordion folding the bills and scrunching them together until they looked flowery. At least she'll have something resembling a flower in it when it arrives and also a few bucks to buy a little annual to plant inside.

 Yeah, I blew it on the ribbon choice at the end, but at this point, a whole day was gone and I was over it.

 My sister is a gardener and a bird watcher and so enjoys the advent of Spring after a cold hard winter. Hope she plants a little colorful bloom in here and enjoys it!

And I hope you'll enjoy some of these fun link parties this week: