You can create garden hooks for hanging indoor or outdoor plants by using your old spoons. Just bend them and flatten the spoons, then simply put them wherever you want to hang a planter. Use smaller spoons for the small plants and larger spoons or ladles for larger plants.

Decorative spoons make wonderfully unique Christmas ornaments. Simply hot glue ribbon to the handle of each one and hang them on your tree. This is an excellent idea for first baby spoons and you can have a special ornament on your tree for every child in your home. These are very inexpensive and very easy to make and will help you to create a stunning Christmas tree display and one that is very personal.

Since spoons technically belong in the kitchen, why not turn those old spoons into lovely decor that you can hang in the kitchen? Just choose a collection of spoons of all different sizes, paint them however you want and hang them in your kitchen area. For a really unique country look, tie them all up with twine and hang them from an old board. They look beautiful and you can customize them anyway you want when you are painting them.

This one is a bit more complicated but definitely worth it. You will need a relatively large board, however long you want your coat hook. Just flatten the spoons out, bend up the ends of the handles and affix them to the board with screws. You can use spoons that all match or mix it up a bit to make it really unique. If you want, you can even have the spoons personalized before you affix them with the names of everyone in your home.

And here few more ideas....

The light blue dress of the figurine caught my eye.

Sandwiched between a red miniature vase and a brightly painted pair of salt-and-pepper shakers, the 11½ inch porcelain figurine of Cinderella looked pale and easily overlooked in the glass display case of a Sutter Creek thrift shop.

I did a double take.

It looked like a Lladro, the famous porcelain collectibles made in Spain. The price sticker on the bottom of the figurine said $20 -- on sale for $10 on this 50-percent-off-everything Saturday.

No way, I told myself, even as I nudged the sticker up with my fingernail to reveal a sliver of the unmistakable Lladro logo.

I sweated through the next five minutes as the kind, elderly

A Lladro Cinderella figurine proves to be a valuable find for more than just its monetary value. (Ann Tatko-Peterson)
thrift shop employee struggled with shaking hands to wrap my new purchase in paper.

For 20 some years, I had trolled flea markets, thrift shops, swap meets and estate sales looking for that one great find -- the bargain of all bargains -- and finally, I knew the rush of uncovering a true treasure that would make even my mother proud.

Maybe treasure is exaggerating reality just a bit. My Cinderella figurine won't pay off the house, or put the kids through college, or even pay this month's bills. On the secondary market, it's worth about $200. But I landed it for 1/20th of that price -- in a day and age of Google searches, where even a small, strip-mall thrift shop in the California foothills should have known that a Lladro didn't

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belong among its other display-case collectibles.

The real value is that I found it at all. It's a badge-of-honor sort of thing that comes from decades of watching my mother rack up great finds like a museum curator.

She bought a Thomas Kinkade painting mere months after the painter opened his first gallery, well before he earned the moniker Painter of Light. While living in Europe, she purchased Wedgwood plates, Lladro figurines and David Winter cottages directly from the factories that made them. Somehow, in 1990, she even managed to buy a special edition "Crossroads" Hummel, commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall, when it was first issued and we were living in Germany.

My mother had a gift for recognizing what would appreciate in value.

I, on the other hand, merely dabbled in that art.

Over the years, I've had a few marginally impressive finds. In the basement of a dusty Las Vegas bookstore, I uncovered a signed Stephen King book with a letter of authenticity tucked inside. In a small New Mexico antique shop, a $2 ring turned out to have a real pearl set in it. And in a Napa thrift shop, I spent $5 on a cute, portable baby's bed to display my stuffed animals, only to discover two years later it was an antique; a dealer paid me $80 for it.

Of course, none of those comes close to the incredible stories of unsuspected treasures. Among the most famous is of a man who bought a weathered copy of the Declaration of Independence at a garage sale, only to donate it to a thrift shop years later. He realized too late that he had given away one of 200 copies of the famous document commissioned by John Quincy Adams; it sold for $477,000 in 2007.

Even in this grand age of the Internet, impossible finds still happen each year.

In 2012, a North Carolina woman bought a $9.99 painting from a Goodwill store so she could repurpose the canvas for her own artwork. Fortunately, she searched Google first and learned she had an Ilya Bolotowsky painting; the abstract sold for $27,000 at auction.

Stories like those are what feed the hopes of anyone who has ever bargain hunted. It's not just about hoping to one day pad the retirement nest egg with a great find. It's really about the rush that comes with the discovery.

And that's why the Lladro Cinderella figurine now sits on my bedroom shelf instead of residing on eBay.

By Ann Tatko-Peterson

Materials:

• Chandelier (try our thrift store)
• Terra cotta pots and saucers (The same number as the “arms” of your chandelier. Ours all had 5.)
• Outdoor-rated spray paint
• Waterproof glue 
• Plumber’s epoxy putty
• Flowers, plants
• Moisture Control Potting Mix
• “S” hook for hanging (and the chain that comes with the chandelier if needed)

Tools:

• Wire cutters
• Garden trowel

1. Slide off the plastic ‘candle’ holders and remove all electrical/wiring from the chandelier using the wire cutters.

2. Attach terra cotta saucers using epoxy putty and glue. The epoxy putty helped to keep the things in place since clamping isn’t possible.

Repeat for attaching the pots. I let the glue dry 1-2 hours before spray painting and allowed it to cure several days before planting.

3. Spray paint the entire thing (even your chain if you’ll be using it). I found that hanging the chandelier from a low tree branch to be the easiest process (especially if the chandelier’s shape doesn’t sit level) but you could also do a 2 step process (position upside down on drop cloth/cardboard, spray paint, dry, flip and the spray from top and let dry). Some parts of the chandelier’s design may also be removable (simply unscrew) and can be taken apart for spray painting if needed. Wear a mask if you’re working under poorly ventilated conditions or breezy weather and eye protection.
Let dry for 24-48 hours.

Plant!


From  diyshowoff.com

Don't miss out on fresh herbs (or pay a lot for them at the market) just because you don't have a big yard. Situate this compact herb garden in a sunny spot near the kitchen door for easy snipping.

Materials

• 5 terra-cotta planters
• Soilless potting mix
• Assorted herbs

 You can find used pots at the Thrift Store. You can substitute the two pots that will be placed upside down with any other conteiner, like a paint can, for example. If you  want your pots to be the same color, you can paint them.

Steps

1. Place largest planter in the location selected for the herb garden. Center 1 smaller pot within, upside down (with at least 6 inches of space around the inverted pot); an empty paint pint would work fine, if you dont' want to use a pot;  fill ring between the two with potting mix.
2. Repeat to create a second layer with 2 smaller pots, with 4 inches between them. Place final pot right side up on second inverted pot. Fill with potting mix. Plant herbs in all three layers.
   
   

Find a glass jar at the thrift store. Place little mementos, photos, souvenirs, etc in it.
Display in your home to bring back pleasant memories of your vacation, trip, or any special moment you want to remember.