Repurposed Garden Trowel

It’s my favourite time of the month again… time for the Thrifty Chicks project challenge.

On the second Wednesday of each month I join some very talented blogging friends for a project challenge, and with a different theme each time it’s really a lot of fun. This month is old yard tools. Here are the befores.

If you missed any of the past projects you can find them here.

I’m so excited to see what my blogging friends have come up with for this month’s old yard tools challenge. You’ll find links to their projects at the end of this post. Be sure to visit and check out the fabulousness.

But first I’ll share my project with you.

I’m going to be honest here and confess that I totally forgot about this project challenge this month.

John and I have been busy renovating our gardens and having a blast doing it I might add, and it totally slipped my mind… until this past Monday.

Yikes!!!!

I quickly went through my stash of rusty stuff and thankfully, to my delight, I found something I could repurpose.

Thank goodness for stashes.

So for my old yard tools project I’m repurposing this old, rusty, and even a little bit crusty garden trowel.

Here’s a close up of all that gorgeous rustiness that I’m going to cover up.

I often like to leave rust alone, but for this project that just wasn’t going to work

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Preparing my garden trowel for spray painting

The first thing to do is to take a wire brush to the trowel to get rid of any loose and flaking rust.

If you have any concerns about the pointed end of the trowel, you could round it with a sander or just use a trowel that already has a more rounded end.

Once you’ve scrubbed it enough, give it a bath with some water to clean it up.

Spray painting my garden trowel

After it’s good and dry, I taped off the shovel part and spray painted it with a Tremclad Rust Paint & Primer combo.

It didn’t come in a color that I wanted so I thought white would make a great base coat.

I gave it two coats, letting it dry in between for about 2 hours.

Then I let that cure for another 24 hours.

From here I could have gone with any color, but since I’m a pink-loving girl and it’s been so hot here lately… it absolutely had to be hot pink.

I  covered the handle in plastic before painting.

After the pink spray paint was dry I taped it off and spray painted the handle with two coats of a green spray paint and primer combo to make it look like a stem.

Creating a garden trowel flower

To create my flower I needed some clear glass beads and some GOOP adhesive. E6000 glue would work too.

Using the GOOP adhesive I glued the beads onto the shovel part of the trowel.

I didn’t worry about it too much, I just followed the contours of the shovel, and it worked out.

To make sure the glass beads didn’t move I taped them in place with painter’s tape for about 15 minutes.

GOOP will set in that time, but it does take a good 24 hours for it to cure.

When I first found the rusty crusty trowel in my stash the first thing that came to mind was the newly planted Lupins in one of our newly renovated gardens.

And here’s my finished repurposed garden trowel flower beside one of them… a pink Popsicle Lupin.

Considering this was an 11th hour project I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

A few days after originally posting this project I found two more rusty crusty trowels and I made two more flowers to go with the pink one.

When the real lupins aren’t in flower I’ll move my trowel lupics around to fill in the spaces.

Save this project for later by pinning to you favorite board.

Now be sure to check out what my friends did with their old yards tools.

Just click on the links below.

1. Itsy Bits and Pieces – A Fun Yard Tool Makeover
2. Audrey Would – Upcycled Bulb Planters
3. Lora B. Create & Ponder – 10 Easy Ways to Decorate with Vintage Garden Tools
4. That’s mine.
5. Little Vintage Cottage – Upcycled Yard Tools Wreath

Thanks so much for reading, and until next time…

keep on keepin’ on!

XOX