I hope you're all having a good start to your week. At least weather wise it is glorious here today with lovely sunshine, a few pretty white clouds and a lovely breeze to keep things comfy. Although I have just been informed by one of my Twitter buddies that tomorrow is going to be 29c and humid ............ that's definitely not in my comfort zone, lol!
Speaking of Twitter buddies ....... a few weeks ago one of my Twitter friends, the lovely Lin (Art from Herts blog) set a small group of us an 'up-cycling' challenge. She sent us a package of interesting bits and bobs followed by an email with a few do's and don't's and a couple of weeks to make something. As usual, I was late to the party for several reasons, DT stuff, going away for a few days and not feeling up to the mark but this week I got my teeth into it and have made two projects.
The main rules were that we had to use everything we were sent and use only a monochrome colour (I chose green) with one contrast colour which could only be used once on each project. I'm not sure how many of the others managed to use every little bit but I do know Nicky did. I had these tiddy bits left and would have used the diecut key but unfortunately it got dropped on the floor and my four legged friend (dog not horse, lol) thought it was edible, lol.
One of the items sent was a cigar tin (they must be very slim cigars ;D) and I separated the top from the bottom and turned it into a little concertina book.
The tin and all the embellishments have been painted with Fresco paints and I applied Grunge Paste through a script stencil and when it was set I put the stencil back on and applied Treasure Gold metallic wax. Some of the embellishments have had Fresco crackle paste applied, some stamping with Olive Archival ink and some more Treasure Gold. The little flower was my contrast colour item.
FRONT
BACK
The concertina inside was a strip cut from one of my treasured Mariposa pad onto which I inked through a tropical leaf stencil with Distress Ink and then stamped with Olive Archival ink, quotes stamps from Tim Holts and a lovely little cluster of butterflies which was a stamp I received as part of a blog candy win from the lovely and very generous Suzz. I also heat embossed the butterflies with clear EP.
I coloured the strips of lace with Distress Ink before sticking them inside the tin.
My second project was to decorate a small plastic ring binder.
I again used Fresco paints to cover the binder but for some reason the colours don't look very green on my screen, except for the embellishments but they are all the same shades I used for the tin. I tore some book pages we received into strips and adhered the randomly to the binder and then painted over them and ........ completely obliterated the lovely German script, doh, but at least it gave me some extra nice texture! I then cut the two doilies in half so that I could spread them out a bit and glued them to the front and back and the strip of mesh down the spine and painted over them too.
I added streaks of the last layer of paint with a dry brush and when it was all dry I stencilled the flowers using Distress Ink and then added the band of Mariposa paper. All the metal bits were given the Treasure Gold treatment but I can't give you the colour name as it was a special edition one I bought from PaperArtsy at the Stamp Magic Show a couple of weeks ago and there's no name on the jar but it is a sort of patina'd green/gold.
I squished the bottle top in my Big Shot, punched a circle from the Mariposa paper (if you look very carefully you might be able to make out the part of a butterfly) and then covered this with a Tim Holtz Ideology Fragment (totally forgot I had these) and then stuck it inside the bottle top. I made a little hole to hang it from the zip pull and lightbulb shaped pin.
The frame and the oval were painted with Fresco paint and then I dug out some really old Distress Crackle in Peeled Paint. I didn't know if it would work because it's gone quite thick but the texture is lovely so I rubbed in some Forest Moss DI when it was dry and a bit of the Treasure Gold. I stamped the Friends quote (from a Kaisercraft set) onto a piece of card and inked a little DI round the edges before sticking to the back of the frame and adding the brads from my stash. The tiny definition in the stamp shaped brad is something else I had forgotten about and is an epoxy sticker from a Tim Holtz set. The brad is painted with Honeydew Fresco but looks almost white on here.
After fraying the ends, I coloured the binding with DI and water and the filigree embellishment with Treasure Gold and layered these onto the spine together with the lovely strip of fancy bobbly edged lace. I left this white as my contrast item.
And that, I think, is that, lol! Sorry it's such a long post and I hope you had a cuppa and managed to get to the end without flagging ;D.
Thanks to Lin for setting this challenge up for us. Once I got a clear run at these projects, I did enjoy myself and it pushed me somewhat as I had to work with things I probably wouldn't have chosen. If you haven't seen the original post on Lin's blog with my friends' projects I hope you get chance to pop over and take a look. They are all quite amazing and all very different.
Till next time I hope life and the weather is good to you all.
Hugs
Lesley Xx
