Here are lots of crafty goodies and gadgets you can make for your kitchen, many are useful for organizing while others can be made to make things a little more pretty. Enjoy!
What a charming retro kitchen display piece, and easy to make too!
DIY Magnetic Knife Rack:
The trick is to cover a knife rack with your choice of fabric to match your kitchen decor.
Turn ordinary glass canisters into something special with this crafty project.
Etched Glass Pantry Jars:
Store pantry staples in these nifty jars labeled with etching cream.
DIY Oil & Vinegar Bottles:
Rebottle and label cooking oils and vinegars for a charming kitchen display.
Save those bottle caps for this crafty project, clock designs available via free pdf download.
KitchenAid Makeover: Banged up KitchenAid hiding in the corner? Try this creative project for making it lovely again.
Tired of looking at that rubber or plastic dish drainer? This is the project for you!
Kitchen Canister Decals:
Retro-style decals via free pdf download…tutorial available for applying them to canisters.
Here’s a colorful way to organize & display your favorite teas.
BBQ Menu Board:
Paint a wood board with chalkboard paint, modge podge some scrapbook paper and you have a fun menu board.
Coffee Bag Rug: With a bit of clever cutting, thread pulling and finishing off the edges (with a serger), the bag is transformed into a lovely kitchen rug.
Vintage Bottle Soap Dispenser: Fit an olive oil dispenser into a pretty vintage bottle & fill with liquid dish soap.
Reversible Toaster Covers: With a pretty print on the outside and flannel on the inside, your toaster will be nice ‘n cozy on the counter.
Either make or buy a wood box, stuff it full with bamboo skewers and voila! a handy knife holder.
Tea Towel Kitchen Rug:
Turn a pretty tea towel into a lovely kitchen mat.
Recipe Card Holder: Made with a jumbo paper clip, wooden nickel, candlestick and base.
Vintage Fork Napkin Rings: You’ll need old forks, a metal stamp set, a vise, a piece of galvanized pipe and vise grips for this project.
Retro Soap Bottle Apron: Anyone remember these cuties? Can be made for both large or small soap bottles. Free pdf pattern download.
Little Acorns Recipe Book Page Holder: Acorns top wooden candle cups and wooden clothespins then decorated with fabric, ribbon and lace.
Bread Buddy: Make a fabric bread bag for toting home loaves of bread (smoosh-free) from the grocery store.
Recipe Stand & Cards: A clever folder and stand that is made with chipboard covered with decorative scrapbook papers, includes templates for recipe cards.
Redneck Wine Glasses: Ha! These are made with mason jars attached to glass candlesticks with epoxy glue.
Embellish A Cookbook: Add a pencil holder, ribbon bookmark and an envelope on the inside cover.
Easy Bread Basket: A large fabric napkin or dish towel is folded and stitched to make this cozy little holder for buns & rolls.
Cloth Bread Bag: A simple drawstring bag is sewn (using two kitchen towels) then “Bread” is painted on top (pdf template provided).
Cross-Stitch Basket Cloth: A fun summer design with watermelon slices around the border, made with 14-count cloth. Free pattern and color key download.
Wooden Cutting Board Transfers: Make a nice decorative piece for your kitchen using a design of choice, wax paper, a credit card and your printer.
Chair Toppers: Protect walls from wooden chair backs with these simple to make covers.
Salt & Pepper Shakers: Learn how easy it is to recycle cute jam jars into salt & pepper shakers.
Bread Cloth: A cloth ideal for using to cover dough while it’s rising, it’s weighted in corners with a coin.
Bowl Covers: Made with oilcloth and can be used to replace plastic wrap or to keep dust out of mixing bowls.
Utensil Organizers: Cheap Dollar Store plastic bins are spray painted white and trimmed with strips of fabric (held in place with hot glue).
Hand Woven Tea Cups: (scroll down page for directions) How sweet would these be for holding packets of tea and specialty coffees!
Ruffled Dish Drainer Quilt (pdf): Recommends using low-loft batting so glasses won’t tip over. From maryjanesfarm.org.
You’ll need a smooth crock in a solid color for this to work best, a little paint and a steady hand.
Casserole Tray: Nice job! Supplies needed are 1×4″ furring strips, wood glue, finish nails, wood stain and handles.
A Shelf Of Bright Plates – Vintage Idea
This article is from the Kitchen-Klatter Magazine, August, 1952
A SHELF OF BRIGHT PLATES
By Alice Hoey Shaffer
When my new house was being built, I had the carpenter put a narrow shelf over the low window above the kitchen sink, with a skirt board below to protect the curtains.
A few days after I had moved in, the building contractor came to the house to finish some small job, and noticed my row of bright-colored plates standing on the window shelf.
“Would you like me to put a plate-rail there?” he asked, “those plates would be safer that way.”
I told him they were safe enough, since they were only paper plates, and he could hardly believe me.
I had taken large, smooth-finished, picnic paper plates, and painted each one a different brilliant color with show-card paint, and later varnished them. They look very bright and colorful, and have earned a great many compliments.
But what most of my friends do not know is that on the back of each plate I have copied a favorite recipe; and I know at a glance, for instance, that on the back of the green plate is a recipe for green apple pie, the gold one has a gold cake recipe, etc. So they are useful as well as supplying a very cheerful note to the kitchen.
thanks for featuring my washi tape knife block!
Thanks for all the fantastic ideas!
Re: Vintage Fork Napkin Rings: A cute project, though you might want to alter the description to change “vice” to “vise” in the two places it appears. After all, you don’t want folks to try working with tools while in the grips of an alcohol or gambling binge.
Regardless of verbal errors, I love the site and look forward to the new tips and crafts each week. it’s the first place I’ve ever seen troubleshooting for my old KitchenAid stand mixer!
Thanks, TipNut
Hi Barbara, thanks so much for the heads up! 🙂
I am thrilled to see my daughter’s wet bag tutorial listed here. Way to go, girl!
An injury to my arm stiffened my fingers. My therapist suggested I try to crochet something because the actions are small and will flex the fingers. I was looking for something easy and the covers for the chair-backs seems to be just what I need. I will be able to make something useful and help my fingers too! Thanks for the great idea.
what a great collection of projects. there are several im going to do for myself. thanks so much for this.
I just wanted to thank you for publishing my post on my KitchenAid Makeover. I still receive hundreds of hits a day on it- thanks to you! I didn’t even know it was on here till a reader commented she found me through you. That day I had thousands of hits (that had never happened before and I had no idea what was going on! :)) So thank you thank you!!!
What a great collection of projects! I see several I would like to do and will probably start with the etched jars. Thanks!