Spoon Painting -- spring decor DIY
This craft took literally fifteen minutes. Fun!
Pinterest has lots of pics of people who have painted wooden spoons. I had wooden spoons I didn't like (handles too thick for my delicate tiny hands -- seriously, my hands are freakishly small), and LOTS of leftover sample pots of paint from when we were choosing paint colors for the house. So this craft was free!
I made the mistake of painting them with a paintbrush for the first coat -- tons of tiny hairs came off the brush and stuck to the rough wood. Argh. Took most of them off. Luckily, I had a sponge brush too, and used that for the second coat.
How cute is that?? I went for spring colors -- these look like hyacinths to me. They are my hyacinth spoons!
I have no idea what you would need to do to be able to cook with them -- seal them in some way, I think, since even if you were very careful not to get food on the painted part (risky), the paint would just come off as soon as you washed them. But maybe a craft store would have some sort of food-grade sealant you could spray or brush on? Not sure. But I'm pretty happy with them just as cheery pops of color among the spoons and spatulas I actually use. :-)
Update: Okay, after poking around, a lot of people used food-safe shellac to seal the spoons. They do still recommend hand-washing them (as you would in theory for any wooden utensil). I'd be wary about the shellac, personally -- if it wore away, over time, you could start having paint in your food without noticing it.
HOWEVER, if you really want to be able to cook with these, you could use a food-safe milk paint, and then food-safe shellac over that, and I think you'd be good to go.