The Easter Bucket

As promised, this is my attempt to write something constructive.

Easter is just around the corner, ya’ll. And I felt the need to get Caedmon a new Easter Basket/Bucket. See, I bought him an adorable basket last year with plans for him to keep it a long time. It seems, however, that something on the basket made Caedmon break out into a rash. Not such a fun way to spend your egg hunting.

So I decided that he needed a bucket. One that was metal and nearly indestructible. He is a boy, after all. I’ve seen several of them on Etsy, and I know lots of people make them. And in my true fashion, I decided I’d make one myself instead of paying someone else to do it. (Not that paying someone else is bad. I just like to do things myself.) I looked around and really didn’t see anything that caught my attention. I mean, there are lots of cute ideas out there, but nothing was really what I wanted.

So I went to Hobby Lobby with the idea to just find something and decide. Clearly, my planning skills have only gotten better with age.

There were lots of adorable metal buckets in great colors. But they all had flower cutouts around the rim. For a girl, it would make an adorable Easter bucket. But for a boy? Not so much. At least, as long as I don’t want Caedmon to be teased mercilessly for carrying a flowery bucket every spring filled with pastel-colored eggs. Because carrying a regular bucket filled with pastel-colored eggs is borderline as it is.

The only buckets that had no flowery cutouts were red or black. Not exactly what I was looking for. The vinyl I was going to use for the lettering was on sale and apparently not well stocked, so all that was left was baby blue and white. So I decided to do a black bucket with a blue design. After all, black is the new…black. I created a few designs on my computer so I could cut them out and test them on the bucket to see which I liked. (We had some dark blue vinyl at home already, so I based a couple of my designs on using both colors.)Husband and I decided to do a single color letter around the middle of the bucket (which I didn’t make a sample of). I mirror-imaged it before printing it out, then used carbon paper to trace the letters on the back of the vinyl. I cut the letters out with scissors and an Exacto knife. I did two sets so I could put it on the “front” and “back” of the bucket. Before adhering them permanently to the bucket, I taped each individual letter on with Scotch tape to make sure it was in the right place. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture.) Then I peeled and stuck them one by one.

And here’s the finished product. Yeah, I know having a black Easter bucket is a bit strange. But at least it’s manly. Sort of. And the upside is that I have about 9 feet left of that 10-foot roll of vinyl. I will definitely have to find something else to do with it!