I Am the Gardener Here - Sticks and Stones Crafts

Well, it is the February thaw. Time to prune the fruit trees and roses. I love doing it. It makes me happy. And why not? I am outside, working with my hands, using my brain, and thinking about the promise of spring and harvest of sweet, juicy fruit and beautiful, fragrant flowers.

With every clip of the shears I repeat, "I am the gardener here," in my head. That quote comes from an analogy by Hugh B Brown. He was pruning a very overgrown currant bush and it seemed to cry and talk to him as he cut it back. It was an experience which helped him handle disappointment ten years later. Here is a wonderful youtube video of the story - music by Jon Schmidt. It is awesome and well done.

Hugh B Brown - I am the Gardener Here Audio/video

Hugh B Brown - I am the Gardener Here  text only

Nice, distraction, huh? But on with the post.

I have a hard time just trashing or even composting all those perfect sticks that I so carefully cut off. Maybe my currant bush could live on in another form, too, before it is composted? Yes, I think so.

Here are a couple of projects to use some of those sweet sticks. And maybe when you see your stick projects in your house you can hear "I know what I want you to be" in your head. Or maybe not.

Tic-Tac-Toe Boards for the Patio

 

 I first made these tic-tac-toe games for a wedding reception that was held at a local park. We made lots of yard games that we spread around the venue.

Materials -

Bases: Find some old board ends that are fairly thick and in decent shape (very weathered wood won't hold a nail - find something solid). Mine were a piece of 3/4" pine and a rough-sawn 1" red oak scrap from the hub's furniture cutoffs. They were 7 inches square and 8 inches square.

Sticks: The sticks I used were well dried (not just pruned or they will shrink and twist) sand cherry sticks. Try to choose very straight and flat sticks.

Brads: 1" to 1 1/4" brad nails (Use the longest ones you can without going through the back of the base board)

Waterproof glue

10  one to two inch River rocks

Acrylic paint (outdoor formulation would be best for outdoor use)

Bases: Layout two sticks from top to bottom on a square, wood base. Cut the sticks 1" smaller than the board. Position the sticks 1/3 of the base in on one side and 1/3 of the base in on the other side, centering top to bottom . (You are making the down lines on a tic-tac-toe grid; you know how to do this.) Put some glue on the back of one of the sticks and put it, glue side down, onto the base. Then nail it down with two brads - one, 1/3 of the stick up from the bottom and the other, 1/3 down from the top. ( _._._ ) Repeat with the other stick.

Now piece by piece, fit and cut six stick pieces to the grid to make a #, gluing and nailing as you go. Cut the pieces to fit tightly to the other sticks and keep your outer border on the base empty (leave space on the edges). While the glue dries, make the markers with the river rock.

Because we were taking these to a park, I made little bags out of leftover painter's canvas so we wouldn't lose the rocks.

Markers: Paint an O on five rocks in one color. Paint an X on the other five. Let dry.

When the boards are dry, paint with several coats of outdoor polyurethane making sure to get it smooshed into the nooks and crannies. Poly will brighten the stones too, if you like (I did not).

You could paint different things on the rocks to go with different themes for parties - hearts, or crowns, or initials, or animals, or leaves . . .

Rustic Pedestal Candle Holders

These candle holders use your bigger limbs.

These were from the cherry tree, which loves to grow taller than I want it to. My limbs were 2 1/2 inches across (largest holder) and 2 inches across (smaller, taller holders).

Simply cut varied lengths of limb on straight angles. I cut mine to: 3", 6" and 9".

Next, clamp your wood piece tightly down to something. Use a 3/4" spade bit on a drill to bore a half-inch deep hole into the top of the piece, centering it.



Have fun pruning - both real and figuratively.