Clothespin Recipe Card Holder ***Tutorial***

I LOVE to alter things! Just like I love to cook like Sandra Lee on Semi-Homemade Cooking on the Food Network, I love to take something good from the craft store and turn it into something GREAT! Here, I took a plain wooden clothespin and turned it into a fantastic recipe card holder that I use all the time!

We are going to be running lots of tutorials here on the Cookbookin' blog and since I am a very visual person, my tutorials will always come PACKED with lots of step by step photos. Enjoy, and as always if you do a project feel free to share a link in the comments section!

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I began altering my clothespin by spritzing it with some brown Maya Mist. I have also made them using paints and other stains but this is the quickest and the messiest;)

Next up I found some paper that I wanted to cover it with. For this clothespin I chose Cookbookin's Preserving Memories line.

I cut out the cute little truck to use later on a card and then I grabbed my pencil and made myself a little cutting line.

Once I had cut out my papers  I used my distressing tool to rough up the edges a bit. I love the distressed look and it goes just perfectly with the Preserving Memories papers.

Once the edges were nice and rough I used a little ink on them. Then I was ready to adhere the paper with some Mod Podge, another fun and messy craft staple at my house!

 On this project I decided to paper over the entire side of the clothespin, sometimes I use two papers so the metal spring shows but since I knew I was going to cover that up with embellishments I took the easy road;) And THEN I decided to use a different paper on each side. Of course I decided that AFTER I had glued BOTH sides down. I just consider that part of my creative process. I am always doing and undoing and doing again. ;)

So now I am using some of Cookbookin's Cookin' Up Memories collection. This is one of my FAVORITE papers, Farmhouse Kitchen. I just adore all the little roosters!!! I'm ready to embellish...

To begin this side I tied a bow with my favorite red gingham ribbon and grabbed an old "inked for another project but didn't make the cut" Prima flower. Now, for attaching anything fabric, I like to use Felt Glue:

 It just seems to hold the best.

Cute already but not even close to being finished!I wanted to use some of these cute little kitchen chips from Maya Road. I decided to cover them with coordinating papers but since I was going to glue them a bit off center I inked the backs a bit so they would look good from both sides.

I glued the chipboard to some patterned paper, here I chose Sweet Summertime, Sunflower Fields paper. OH!!! By the way, Scrapbook.com has LOTS of Cookbookin' goodies in stock and ready to ship!!!

After the glue dried I carefully cut the excess paper off with a craft knife.

Yes, things were getting pretty messy on my craft desk...

But look how it turned out!

To finish this side I added a few Maya Road Leaf pins, some tiny red ric rack and some itsy bitsy letter stickers. Now on to the OTHER side~

I decided to use different papers on each side so I could flip the clothespin around and have a bit of a different look. For this side I simply gathered some of the same ribbon {since the bow from the other side shows} and then I used one of my favorite dimensional stickers from Cookbookin's Preserving Memories line.

There, all done!

Don't forget about the September sketch challenge, the sketch and link are on the sidebar. You could win this:

Happy Scrapping!