Free Paint Stick Garden Markers

What’s the deal with free sticks?  Is it written somewhere that all sticks must be free?  You can get free tooth picks at most restaurants, right?  Then there’s free coffee stir sticks at coffee joints.  Hey, how about all those free chop sticks!?  What the heck?  I mean seriously…sticks are free people!  So, I decided to take full advantage of this sticky stick situation, and do something clever with the free paint sticks they give away at Home Depot when you buy paint (or when you buy nothing).  I made “Free Paint Stick Garden Markers” and they turned out super cute!

 Before I show you the sticks, today is Thrifty Style Team day so there are many other fabulous blog friends joining me with their thrifty styling ideas and you can sift through those below.  First though…lets check out the free paint stick garden markers I made in literally minutes…

Here’s the sticks before:

Maybe you didn’t know that Home Depot hands these out like candy.  They usually give you one when you buy a can of paint, but if you ask for more, you shall receive 😆 .  The lady I asked said, “How many you need?” I then told her about 20, and she counted out 20 and said, “Have fun.”

Well, I did have fun.  I got them home and painted them with spray paint I already had on hand.  I guess if you don’t have spray paint, you can use any paint you have.  You could get really crazy and stain them.  That would be super cool.  Just make sure you have a lot of ventilation where ever you are painting, you use a mass,  and you are far from fire.

I gave each side 3 coats and was very careful to get the edges.  After they dried, I sprayed on 1 coat of glossy spray polyurethane.  This is not necessary, but I had some so I did it.

After they were painted all pretty and completely dry, I took a black permanent marker and wrote the name of what I was marking in our garden on the end of the stick.  We have a herb and veggie window box outside of our kitchen window on the deck that I stuck these in.  I also stuck them in some potted veggies on our deck.

TIP: HOW I STORE BASIL IN THE FRIDGE WITH OLIVE OIL.

I was actually thinking that they would look cute in front of flowers, too.  If you wanted to get really creative you could put little fun sayings on them like, “Jive w/ my Chive”, or “Clip Free Chives Here”.   You could put anything your heart desired on them.

TIP: CHIVE STORING IDEA THAT IS A MUST SEE IF YOU LOVE CHIVES.

If you need to trim the paint sicks, you can use a hand saw, but be very careful.

Oh, and I can’t forget to tell you, that I used one of my lettuce garden markers for some buttercrunch lettuce I planted in a pretty milk glass bowl.  I set this out on our deck coffee table and it is growing like crazy.  Once it gets a little bigger I can tear off what I need for sandwiches.  If you try this, be sure to use a very good veggie potting soil, and water every day when the heat hits.  Here’s my OLIVE GARDEN SALAD DRESSING HACK if you’re getting hungry .