Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Could there be such a thing as a Female Chauvinist Sow? 

If there is, I could be accused of being one. When it comes to crafting, I'm really not an equal opportunity creator. I have to admit that 99% of what I make for the craft shows are geared towards the female gender. The closest I would ever get to including the male gender would be objects intended for the young version of the species -  the little guys. 

Last year, I decided to change that. Actually, I tried the year before with little success, so I revamped my idea and created these "guys."

Originally, I just tried to sell the lures that I purchased, and out of 3 shows, I only sold 1 out of the 4 I had. So, I decided to add the remainder to some cabinet doors I had already hoarded had on hand. Painted them babies up, stenciled some words on them in a playful twist on the Live Laugh Love quote that has been over-saturating the decor world. My hubby actually came up with this idea as a joke at first, but I went with it. I sold these 2 at the first show and almost sold the last one at the last show (it looked just like the black/red one).

But don't think I've turned over a new leaf and now I'm screaming equal rights for 50/50 of men crafts at craft shows. Oh no. However, I do feel there should be a few more woman approved items that can be chosen as tasteful gifts for the "real man" in your life. Yes. As far as I'm concerned, FOOD fits the bill good enough - don't ya think?

This year I've come up with something that would work for both the big or little man who might be a baseball fan. It's nothing to get excited over, but it still fills a little bit of the void & shows I've done my part.

Boy, I really need to find a better place to take good pictures. I took these outside on the picnic table, but the sun is bright today, so it's washing out the knob design.

I found a distressed, but solid looking bat at a garage sale. I liked that it was pretty much the same width down most of the length of the bat. It had the black wrap tape at the handle, but it was mostly unraveled & half of it was missing. I removed all that and had my hubby rip the bat down the center on his table saw, which is kind of tricky since it's not the same width from end to end. He doesn't have a ton of fancy accessories for his saw, so he just had to eyeball it. It isn't perfect, but I won't tell if you don't. ;)

Luckily, we have TONS of the same kind of black fabric tape from when I used to work for an automotive company.  They threw out several full boxes of  this tape, so needless to say, since it was F-R-E-E we now have a bunch and both handles were rewrapped - good as new...or old, or whatever.

I found these darling knobs at a little place I visit occasionally & they get in the unusual stuff and it's like dirt cheap! I bought several packages of them thinking I would find a good use for them. I think this is a good start!

There's 8 knobs in the package, so I only used 1 pack and still have 2 (red) football helmet knobs left to use on something else. They would be perfect for our area, since the school color is mainly red.

I used some Minwax Aged Oak gel stain to give them some more age, and because the beige color of the knobs blended in too much with the natural wood color. 

Now all they need is a couple of sawtooth hangers on the back and they're good to go!

 

 I'm linking to these parties: