wildflower canvas with fused plastic bags

there are lots of recycled projects on creative blogs all over the web, and i was inspired to create a project using items that would usually go in the recycle bin. this very cool  tutorial for fusing plastic bags was posted on EtsyLabs a while ago, and i was really glad to see the tutorial link on a friend's blog. (thanks, Kirsten!)

it looked fun and easy, so i decided to give it a go. one really cool aspect was that the look of the final piece could be changed depending on what bags you use. after fusing the bags, i die cut some flowers and sprayed them with glimmer mist. i used my heat tool to dry the glimmer mist, and it had the added benefit of curling the edges of the flowers, making them really dimensional.

the light and dark blue flowers are cut out from the lids of mixed nut cans, and the silver ones are cut from the liners to the cans. the blue flowers are stamped with gold ink, and the liners are colored with alcohol inks. the stems and grass are the fused bags with some glimmer mist.

 

it was fun to play with such different materials and just see what evolved. have you done any recycled projects? link me up, i want to see!

rainy saturday

the second half of the softball tournament was supposed to be today, but it rained non-stop last night and most of the morning, so it has been canceled. which means i have a whole day to play! kind of like a snow day in february, it feels like a gift. i started a new project last night after reading the latest sew somerset and being completely inspired. no peeks yet!

last month Lin, Becky, and i went to Scrapaganza for their friday night crop. the rest of the tea club couldn't make it, but hopefully they will be able to go on the next field trip! they had not been to a crop before, so it was fun to show them the ropes. we even got some scrapping done. Becky brought some leftover window screen, and she was the hit of the crop! here's a page i made using it:

the flower is made with an accordion of screen with a brad in the middle. just twist until it looks good!

i was reading someone's blog and she was talking about how she didn't worry about matching the colors in her pictures any more, and that it was very freeing. so i gave it a whirl:

starting with a background that didn't match, i added some bits that do match, using different blues and reds. no worries about if they were the same shade or not. it was fun! so i did another one:

at first i looked for a blue card stock to match her shirt, but then decided to use one of my favorite blues, even though it's a different blue.  the orange looked great with the blue even though there isn't any orange in the photo. there may be something to this idea!

are you a matchy scrapper? let me know, and thanks for stopping by!

a quick post

spring finally came, and it came with a busy schedule!

prom sure is different now:

than it was then:

and that's your laugh for today!!