Upcycled Spoon Garden Markers

Spring weather finally came to Idaho a few weeks ago so my husband and I have been in planting/garden mode.  We just made some raised garden beds this weekend and planted our first seeds for our veggie garden!  I needed a way to tell where I had planted certain seeds so we decided to make garden markers out of old spoons.

What you will need:

• Old Spoons (silver ones are easier to hammer out, but stainless steel ones work too, I had to get my hubby to stamp the stainless spoons)
• Hammer and/or Sledgehammer (I found it easier to use the sledgehammer rather than a normal hammer to pound them flat)
• Metal letter stamp set (my piece of advice, buy this at a hardware store, if you try finding it at craft stores they are ridiculously over priced, I got my set for $2.50 at Harbor Freight Tools, I saw them at craft stores for $30)
• Sharpie
• Hard surface to pound out your spoons (we used some rocks on our patio)

 Take your spoon, put it on a hard surface with the patterned side facing down and smash away with your sledgehammer, until it is flat.  Next get out your letter stamps and place the first letter where you would like it to go and strike it hard with your hammer.  Finish up the rest of your word like this.  It will come out looking something like this.

I found it a bit hard to read it like that so I wanted to fill in the letters.  This is where the sharpie comes in.  You will write over the lettering, pushing the sharpie down hard so it gets in the crevices. 

Next you will take a paper towel or rag and wipe off the sharpie that is not in the crevices.  Most of the sharpie will come off but you may need to get your paper towel/rag damp to get it all off.

You can put the lettering in different patterns; we put cilantro diagonally because it was a longer word.

Now all you have to do is put them in your garden!