Happy Earth Day

It was Earth Day at the studio today :)

decided, in honour of the occasion, to create something in the studio out of recycled materials. I looked around the studio and raided the blue bin for this project -- a Coke Can Frame.

I took a bunch of cans and cut them up using my Tim Holtz "snips" -- very carefully!!! For those who know me, this can be a trick as I tend be rough with my tools BUT ... I did it!! No cuts! Yippee

I loosely placed the cut up cans on my frame to get a general idea of where I would put them... I then snapped a pic and took the pieces off to wash them in the sink.

Once dry, I used the Tim Holtz texture hammer to "rough up" the pieces. The tin pieces were imperfect already - I just wanted to make the imperfections a bigger part of the piece.

If you have a hot glue gun, you can glue the pieces to the frame (use your picture ). I use my trusty 3in1 Glue from Beacon. Yep -- another use for this glue. Gotta love it!

I used very small finishing nails to tack down the pieces and to give it a little more "hardware". Be careful that your nails won't go through your frame. My nails needed to be no larger than 1/2" long.

The flowers were made with pop tabs and water bottle lids.

Get out your Alcohol Inks and a couple of baggies for this. I chose "meadow" ink for the pop tabs. Place your tabs in a small baggy and drop a couple of ink and shake (remembering to close the bag). Once the tabs are coated with the ink, empty onto a craft sheet. Heat set the tabs heat gun before use.

Shake up a bottle of Silver Mixative and apply it to the water bottle cap using a piece of felt - this will change the colour to silver as the mixative leaves an opaque colour. Once dry (this won't take long) spread some 3in1 glue on the top of the lid. I spread it around the cap with my finger and then poured some Stix 2 "seed" to the top of the lid to finish the center piece. Now all you have to do is arrange the flowers on your frame and glue them in place!

I found some green wire in my "tickle trunk" : green floral wire.

Using my fingers, I twisted the wire into stems and "swirly" leaves and attached them to the frame using that amazing glue to finish it off. :)

Pretty cute. I had fun.

I challenge you all to try a little recycled material art! Be sure to send me an image of your creation if you do! Love to see what you come up with!!

I do have some more glue on special at the studio. If you missed out on getting two bottles of 3in1 Glue for $10 -- come on in the studio and pick some up. I will honour the Scrapfest Show Special until May 1 or while quantities last.

Here's a pic of me (and Sue) in the booth grabbing a "bite" before the mayhem Friday afternoon :)

More on that later !
Happy Creating,