Let the recycled fine art begin!!!

After taking a trip to the contemporary art building at the National Gallery of Art in Washington last month, I got a little inspired! I found this recycled art on a website and I think I might try it out! Easy steps on how to do this are below. It's very easy and you just have save your plastic bottle lids!

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Materials:

- Canvas or wood scraps
- Plastic bottle lids (from water bottles)you can layer of lot of lids
- Paint brush
- Acrylic paints- black and other assorted bright colors
- Pencil
- Ruler
- Aleene’s® Super Thick Tacky Glue ™
- Assorted jewels, flat marbles, small glass mosaic tiles

Instructions

1.Use pencil and ruler to measure and mark sections on canvas.

2.Glue one plastic bottle lid into the center of each section. We glued every other lid reversed. One up, one down, one up, one down. On the small canvas, we layered all sorts of sizes and shapes. Let glue dry.

3.Paint the entire canvas and plastic lids with black paint. Let dry.

4.Using photo as guide, paint each section with a different color. Note that some of the black paint is left to show through the color. Paint each plastic lid with a different color. Let dry.

5.Glue a jewel, flat marble, or tile into the center of each plastic lid. Let glue dry.

Wool scraps into flowers!

I've been looking for a non-cheesy, yet easy (of course) wool fabric flower tutorial. I think this one will suffice. I believe I shall try this one out while the children are off at their friend's houses over Winter break. Yes, I shall try this with some old wool scrap fabric. I will post my results after I try it out. Meanwhile, have a look-see for yourself at how easy and pretty these little flowers look. I'm sure they'd look cute with felt, too.

Cute donuts!

I found these on fabric.com's blog. I'd never have thought to use yarn as frosting. ;-)

I tried making the rolled fabric flowers - TRIED being the exclusive word. Word to yr mother.

Okay. I'm a dork. I didn't even read the tutorial that I POSTED carefully enough. I was supposed to TWIST the fabric as I wrapped. Well, I didn't. I just wrapped and even though they are pretty, they probably will look better once I twist them and ACTUALLY follow the directions posted here. MAYBE ONE DAY I WILL LEARN TO READ DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY AND NOT SKIM THEM. Ya, right. ;-)

My friend's upcycled girly shirts!

My friend Deb, has a few upcycled girly tops for sale on her blog. Click here to check 'em out!

Rolled flowers - once again, easy to make and way cheaper than Target! ;-)

I wanted to buy a headband at Target this weekend with this type of rolled flowers on them. They were charging $9.99 for one headband!!!! FORGET THAT. I found a tutorial to make my own dang headband. All I have to do is rip strips of fabric, roll the fabric, use my glue gun and glue them to a skinny, CHEAP .99 headband from the dollar store. I'm NOT paying $9.99 for something I can make in 45 minutes.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE EASY TUTORIAL!

Make a necklace with a washer, glue and paper!

Click here to see how to make a rad looking necklace just using a washer from the hardware store (or from the scary toolbox in the garage! ;-), and some paper and glue!

Snowflake designs using DOILIES. Mah favorite!

I know I already posted this idea, but it's so awesome and EASY. You can even bleach onto patterned shirts/dresses/pants!!!

1. Soak a doily in bleach and water.

2. Make sure to put a piece of cardboard or wax paper in between the front and back of the shirts so the bleach doesn't soak through to the other side!

3. Experiment on how long you wish to leave it...you can press it with books.

3. Don't forget to rinse or wash it alone before washing it with all your clothes!




(Pics from Craftster.org)