My Gingher scissor collection - voila!

Hi everyone....thought I'd share with you a little do-it-yourself project I did last month.  I've been collecting those Gingher designer embroidery scissors for years like so many of you but sadly they've just been stored in a box and not really on display.  I know a lot of people have used lovely glass flower frogs and while I love those, I had too many scissors and would've had to buy several and I really don't know where I'd put them all. 

Then one day while searching on Gingher scissors in Google I stumbled on a stitcher's blog and WOW she had a beautiful display!  Let's give credit where credit is due - this is from a stitching blog called Periwinkle Ink.  I never would've thought of this myself.   It was just what I needed so I headed right off to eBay to see if I could find one of these vases. (If you search on "Southern Home vase" you will find them easily.  I only paid $7.00-9.00 US for mine - the shipping was more than the vase).  Luckily they are plentiful and easy to find.  What I love is that it has 22 holes so can hold a lot of scissors!  The only thing is they only come in butter yellow (even though some of the photographs on eBay look white - they aren't).  It's a very pretty yellow mind you but just didn't go in my sewing room.  Well I bought one anyway and then I started wondering if it was possible to paint it.  Hmmmm...the wheels were turning..........

Thank goodness for all of those DIY blogs!  I found a blog that explained how to paint pottery and so my little project was born.   I marched off to Walmart to stock up on spray paint - white primer for a base coat then a white lacquer spray to go on top of that.  I also got a can of Krylon clear coat for a sealer.

After many coats and a few booboos later I finally got it painted white.   I'm not a master of spray painting - I tend to be too impatient and you have to give it several light coats and not let it drip etc.    My sewing room is aqua and pink so I then got on my computer and played around to create a label as I thought the vase needed a little something.  I created a label using a free graphic oval from the Graphics Fairy blog and Powerpoint, then added the pink color using Microsoft Paint.  A graphic artist I'm not but I got it looking pretty good I think.  Getting it to stay on the vase was a bit of a trial - I tried printing it on a clear label - wouldn't stick.....I tried printing it on a piece of waterslide decal paper purchased off eBay....what a nightmare that was!  Another failure.  Finally I just printed it on white label paper I use for shipping labels and right after I stuck it on the vase I gave it a coat of the spray clearcoat.  So far it's staying put thankfully.   Now I was almost done but I decided to buy a small piece of foam at Joann's and cut an oval to stick down in the vase.  This holds the scissors up a bit so more of the pretty handles show and they don't slide down in the holes as much.

So here it is finally - 22 of my Ginghers on display finally in my sewing room!  I'm really happy with it and have bought a couple more vases for "future growth" LOL.  I still have 5 pairs of scissors that don't have a home yet so I'll be starting on painting another vase this weekend.  Oh these addictions we have!