Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Knife Vases

So, What the HELL would you do with these knives? They are silverplate and are somewhat lighter than usual.


Look for these types of handles. I still haven't figured out a 100% accurate test for determining if they are hollow or not. Let me know if you know.



Here is what I have made with them. Flower vases. I used some vintage beaded flowers from an estate sale and since I didn't have any fresh flowers on hand, I made some. So here goes...flower vases and flowers.


This is really very simple. This is the saw that I use. Estate sale find. Get a good clamp and clamp the knife to a workstation in the garage or somewhere. If you have a hollow knife you will only have to make a few passes with the saw. You might start to see white powder, if you do, it's not hollow. It is some kind of plaster of paris or something. I have found some handles that had sand in them.

This is what some will look like.
This is what we want it to look like. You want to cut about an inch under the handle/spreader line. After cutting, sand. You have made a flower vase. It can be put in a picture frame with flowers or made into a magnet for the refrigerator and put a single flower in it.



Using these supplies I made flowers to go inside. Click on photo to enlarge (if blogger is being nice to me today. If I move the photos around you can't click on them?!) I had some hard wire sticks from floral pics that I had saved. I took the red tacky tape and wrapped the wire stick and then used a cheapo fine chain and then wrapped it around the wire stick. I then attached some of my enamel flowers to the top of the stick and put them in the vases.



This is what you have left afterwards... Now What the HELL am I going to do with these? I have to save them. Suggestions?

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Good job Mary..the flowers are so adorable...but I was hoping to see a picture of the hole in your thumb!!!

Cindy said...

THe flower vases are adorable. Perfect use of the knife handle and that 60's style jewelry. I hate windchimes, but you could make the blades into one of those dreadful noisemakers.

Anonymous said...

I have to say, I don't see too many things on blogs that make me want to stop everything and try them right then. Your knife flower vases is one of the few. I can't wait to get a saw and start hacking away. What a great idea!!

Julie B.
bowbates@ameritech.net

Mary's Madness said...

Cindy, I will send you a pic of the nail. I had to move pics around in the post so the one that shows it won't click open!

Upthecreek, That is a good idea to use the spreaders as parts to a windchime. I'll have to check the noise factor! :)

Julie, This is the easiest hard looking project ever. The hardest thing, finding the hollow handles. Thanks for making me feel good!

Anonymous said...

Hi,
This is burgundybelle from livejournal. I can't get the comment window to open wide enough to get LJ confirmation so I'll sign in as anonymous.
For the knife blades, I would cut them to size for arms and legs, drill holes at the tops, paint with alcohol inks and attach to a doll torso. You could use the beads for hair idea too. I'll be using that one myself.

Mary's Madness said...

Great idea! I love making crazy people! I'll try that out and post pics when I do! I would love to see pics of your project if you try it also!

Thanks!

Unknown said...

Way cool, check over at my blog for what I did to old forks (also on my Etsy shop soon!!)!!

Tam Hess said...

Could you curl them up and use them for something...part of the windchimes? Awesome idea, as usual! xo Tam

Tam Hess said...

There's an award waiting for this blog as well! xoxo