Guest Designer - Celtic Crafter - Mother's Day Spools

Spool Photo Holder for Mother’s Day

     I am SO excited to be the guest designer for May! Since it is May, I decided to make a Mother’s Day gift for my mom. She used to be a seamstress, so when I saw a vintage spool photo holder (designed by Rae Barthel, featured in the May/June ’12 issue of Paper Crafts magazine), I knew a gift like that would be perfect. I found an old wood spool that was my mom’s (which just happened to have the original thread in her favorite color & goes with the papers I chose, so I left it as is), a cardboard ribbon spool, and I bought an unfinished wood spool from the craft store (because I only had the one from my mom) to make this cool photo holder.

CC Items Used:

Echo Park This & That Graceful Collection Pack; Rusty Hinge Distress Stain; MME Stella & Rose Hazel “Memories” Trim

Other Supplies:

Wood & Ribbon Spools (my unfinished wood spool is 1½"x 2⅛"); 24-gauge Craft Wire (I used an antique gold); Vintage Photo Distress Ink; Jute Twine

Instructions:

1) Decorate spools as desired. I adhered patterned papers to the top & bottom of the cardboard spool using Mod Podge, inked the edges, and tied aqua twill around it with a bow. (This will be the base.) Then I stained the unfinished wood spool using Rusty Hinge Distress Stain, adhered patterned paper to the top (the bottom won’t show), and wrapped a quote around it, that I printed & matted on a piece of patterned paper cut to 1½"x 6¾" (with the edges distressed & inked), tied with jute twine.

2) Adhere the two wood spools together, stacked, using hot glue or a strong liquid adhesive.

3) Cut wire to the length needed (I needed 19 inches), form two circles at the top (this will hold the photo), and create about an inch long spiral just below the circles by wrapping the wire around a pen or pencil.

4) Thread the straight part of the wire through the wood spools and bend the end under (making sure the wire won’t stick out when stacked on the base).

5) Finally, adhere your wired spools centered onto the base.

Now you can add a photo or a handmade tag like I’ve done. (I made this simple tag using two of the papers from the collection pack.)