Using Sharpies to make bakers twine

It's the second Thursday in April, and time for a post dedicated to a tutorial.   It's also Day 14 of 22 days of recycling, repurposing, or rethinking a project.

My supplies are:

Sharpies, because I already had them
Index cards I found while going through a drawer in my office
Embroidery thread that was given to me

I knew I would never use the thread under normal circumstances, so instead of letting it go to waste in my craft room, I decided to put it to good use.  Since I had already purchased and paid for the Sharpies several years ago, I thought it was time I put them to good use again.  After all, craft supplies that "go bad" are a waste of money, and that always makes me sad.

The first thing I did was cut two slits at opposite ends of the index cards. I then wound the thread around the cards.  This took forever, but it was worth it.

I took one Sharpie and drew lines along the length of the wrapped thread, as shown above.  I turned the card over and repeated the process.

The next color I used was red.

I did the same with orange, drawing vertical lines on both sides of the card.

Next came green, but I don't think you need to be reminded again.  After all, it's very tedious, yet boring work.  I found that if I held onto the thread as I was drawing a line, I got a better line.  If I didn't, the line seemed to meander off course.

Although I had a few colors I didn't use, I was out of index cards and didn't want to cut old file folders and wrap more thread.  I had already spent nearly five hours doing this.  Like I said, tedious and boring.

After I finished the lines, I was mortified to think the ink had bled through to the back.   Upon closer inspection, I realized

I was looking at ink from the opposite side.  Although it had bled through the index card, it didn't affect the thread on the opposite side of the card.  The good news was, the Sharpies penetrated both sides of the thread, so no matter which way the twine was twisted, the color would still be the same.  

Now this tutorial has gone live you will find it on my Tutorials page under Making bakers twine using Sharpies.

For Day 14 of 22, I repurposed some embroidery thread I will never use for its intended purpose, and turned it into bakers twine, a product I have found to be either inexpensive and inferior in quality, or rather expensive but made with quality twine.

Thank you for your visit and if you decide to make some bakers twine from my tutorial, please let me know and I will feature it and you on my blog.