Tobacco Stick Bench & Fence

Tobacco Stick Bench

Thought I'd show you another use for those old tobacco sticks you may have laying around.

Here is some of mine. I keep theme upright in an old trashcan, out of the rain:

I made the tobacco stick bench for a country, rustic themed wedding.

It was to be one of a few, sitting by a tobacco stick table (photos coming soon) to work as the gift giving center.

(More ideas for Tobacco Sticks here)

It is just a basic bench design, very simple. Notice the red lines. It's a basic bench design:

I used the tobacco sticks at full size, other than a few that were cut as the braces.  

See the shorter pieces as side braces

 And the bottoms of the legs.  They had to be cut to get the point off, so that they would sit flat on the floor.

I used a nail gun to shoot the nails in since the tobacco sticks are a very hard wood.

Ignore the egg and beater below, and you can see the nails sink in pretty far and aren't noticeable at all.

 On the back of them though, you have to take wire cutters and cut off the rest of the nail that shot through. Unless you have shorter nails to use. I didn't.

As you can see, after the basic frame, I just went back in and spaced the "seat & back" area by just eyeing it to what looked good to me.

The front bottom rail on this one has to be replaced. Because as soon as I finished it, my nephew ran up and of course, put his foot on it to start to climb.

Tobacco Stick Fence:

While I had the tobacco sticks out, I made a make do yard fence also. I love these for decorating around the holidays. And they are so easy to just take and stick anywhere.

Very simple. In this photo I just laid the last row on the top of the frame. But when nailing it, I kept all three runs on the same side.

And since the legs are already pointy, they are easy to stick in the ground where you want to decorate!

Here it is propped up to get a view:

Hope ya'll liked this.
See ya next time!
~Lisa

And if you like tobacco stick crafts I have a few more here in this blog:

Tobacco Stick Grapevine Tree

Tobacco Stick Tree 

Tobacco Stick Chair

Americana Tobacco Stick Flag

And more...

~*~

Since many people ask me what tobacco sticks are, I thought I'd add this.

Sorry, I grew up in KY and just thought everyone knew of them.

These old tobacco sticks were used in the fields when growing tobacco, and were speared through the tops of the stalks of the tobacco. 

They were essential for "hanging" the tobacco in the barns to cure. 

A lot of stalks of tobacco could be slid onto one tobacco stick. And then they were then hung up on the rafters in the barn to cure on the railings.

Here is a bunch of tobacco:

 

Let me leave you now as I sit down to a waiting bowl of my good ole'

Fried Cabbage!

YUM!

Happy Crafting Ya'll!

-Lisa

MASON JAR Stamped Hang Tags (Gift Tags & Price Tags)

I'm loving all these Mason Jar ideas I've seen lately. So thought I'd share a really popular one I like to do.

 (If you want them without making them, they are available in my Etsy shop, hint hint :-)

Yesterday I made up a bunch of new tags for my craft Booth #555.  I made both some plain ones and some primitive & grubby ones also. And of course, a lot of the Mason jar styles! These are really simple and require very little supplies.

Here is what you will need:

-I use Avery manilla, blank labels with re-enforced eyelet

but you can easily pick up a package of 100 white, Avery blank labels from Walmart for around $2.00

-1 bottle of brown craft paint from Walmart.  They run about .88 cents a bottle.

-1 paint brush

-A Stamp of your choice: Mason JAR (I bought mine on eBay around $11.00)

-blank ink stamp pad ($1.00 from Dollar Tree)

-String if you don't have any or don't want to use the white that comes with the Walmart ones, you can purchase bakers twine on eBay or from me on etsy :-)

OPTIONAL: 

First thing I did was to turn the plain, out of the box tags into the grubby, primitive type that we are seeing everywhere.  I DID DO THIS TO THE MIDDLE PHOTO AT THE TOP, but I like them both GRUBBY AND PLAIN!

 I used the most simple way I could think of to do this.  Not involving the coffee, tea or other mixtures that I've read about out there. 

I did this process in an earlier blog post, so I won't bore you again here. But if you need the details, here's the link:

Grungy Tags Recipe Without Tea or Coffee

Then I just got out my mason jar stamp and black in pad and hand stamped each one of them. 

Then all that was left to do was to attach some baker's twine to each one.  This was the hardest part. lol. I hate tedious things like this, but it must be done! lol

And BAM! They are done.

Wouldn't these be awesome attached to a cute, country gift. Maybe packaged in that plain ole' brown paper wrapping?  Or use them as gift tags on mason jar goodies in summer?  And best of all, wouldn't they be a cute little accessory in a country themed wedding?  As for me, I use them as price tags in my craft booth. 

I mean the uses could be endless.