Scrapping by Design

I made this altered art brooch using an irregularly shaped piece of CD or DVD disk.  It’s an example of Melt Art as popularized by Suze Weinberg.

To make this brooch, I heated a CD disk in boiling water until it was somewhat softer and easier to cut.

I cut it into pieces using old scissors.  If you try this, be sure to protect your eyes. Little pieces of CD can fly around when you make the break.

I painted the front of the CD using craft paint, then stamped an image using part of a stamp and black stamping ink.

When dry, I coated with about two coats of Ranger Melt Art UTEE Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel, Clear. I heated  it with a heat gun to melt the UTEE, and applied two coats of UTEE.

I attached a brooch pin on the back.  You can buy them at Michaels Arts and Crafts Store, or at other craft stores.

On some of the other brooches that I made, I punched a tiny hole in the bottom and dangled a charm through the hole.

This is a green craft project that makes good use of unwanted CD and DVD disks.

I made this heritage photo frame from two recycled CD or DVD disks.

The CDs are covered with heritage scrapbook paper, and there is a stamped frame as well, which is by Anna Griffin.

The instructions for making the CD album are found in my video, CD Mini Album

Altered art is such a wonderful way to recycle CDs, DVDs and other disks. This is one of the projects on my Squidoo lens, Green Scrapbooking.

Want to see something interesting?  Julie from Spruce Grove Alberta (she’s one of the gals in my Canada Stamp Talk email group) has posted pictures of an altered art object she made.

The object started out as a “vapor barrier”  — apparently its something to do with electricity or electrical wiring.

It ended up as a very cute and funny hat for the family dog.

Check it out. The story and pictures are atDesigned With You in Mind.

Some days I just have to experiment. This altered art item is made from altered cookware packaging. From time to time I like to dabble in mixed media art using ephemera and found objects.

It all started when a friend gave me a box of cookware as a birthday gift.  When I unpacked the pots and pans, I discovered that each item was packaged with an unusually shaped piece of packaging.

The packaging spoke to me and begged to be turned into something I didn’t know what, at that time — but something.

I also resolved that whatever supplies I used would come from my stash — which is plentiful.

The finished project is shown above. I decided it was a wall hanging, although if laid flat on a table, it could be a functional holder for potpourri, candy, a candle, a flower pot, etc.

Here is the video demonstration showing what I did:

The supplies I used were Luminiere paint (Halo Blue Gold), a birthday card used for the images,  silver metallic ribbon and small, white artificial flowers. I decoupaged with Mod Podge and used Zip Dry to attach the metallic ribbon.

I have some more pieces of this packaging material. Some day soon they will become another item of altered art. I’m not sure what, but somehow I’m seeing a big sunflower in my mind.

These Christmas cards (0r Holiday) cards are easy to make, eco-friendly and economical. They can be quite attractive too, depending of course on your choice of papers and embellishments. They can also be considered “altered art” since essentially I altered an existing object to make them.

I used a box of Christmas cards from the Dollar Store, but recycled cards from last year would work well. Naturally, you can make from scratch if you want to cut card stock and fold it in half.

The papers I used are scraps from my stash, left over gift wrapping paper from last year and scraps of attractive paper that arrived in the mail.

Embellishments are stamped images, ribbon (gift wrap ribbon from last year), stickers, bits of lace and rick rack, buttons, paper flowers cut with a craft punch, hand journaling and pretty much anything else you want to use.

Here are seven cards made from the same design:

Here is a video demonstrating how to make the card. If you’re an experienced paper crafter, I doubt if you will find anything new in it, but if you are new to card making and crafting, perhaps you’ll be interested.

This season,  I plan on saving my Christmas cards that I receive and recycling them next year, as well as any salvageable gift wrap, stickers and ribbons that come into my home over the holiday season.

I felt inspired recently to pull my Pearl Ex powders out of the closet and make a few stamped images.

In the pictures to the left, the top picture is a completed card using an image that’s been colored with Pearl Ex powders. The second and third are stamped images, not yet assembled into a card.

If you are not familiar with Pearl Ex powders by Jacquard, you can read about them at Jacquard Product’s web site, or check them out at Amazon: Jacquard Products Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments 32 Color/Set

I love Pearl Ex. These glorious little pots of color have so many uses. And — even though they appear to be somewhat costly, a little bit goes a very long way. I am still using the 24 pots of Pearl Ex I bought several years ago and they will last a long time yet.

Pearl Ex is not to be confused with Radiant Pearls or Perfect Pearls.  These two products, as far as I know, will stick to surfaces and can be painted on. Pearl Ex  powder  is pure mica and has no “sticky” agent included.

On the one hand, this makes Pearl Ex powder  a little more difficult to work with. It requires the additional step of first using  something sticky, such as the watermark ink that I demonstrated in the video below.

On the other hand, since Pearl Ex is a powder, you can mix it with almost any other medium and use it in tons of different ways. In that respect, it is much more versatile than the “paint on” kinds.

Here is a video demonstrating how to make a greeting card using a stamped image colored with Pearl Ex powders.

The finished result varies somewhat depending on the texture of the paper or card stock you are stamping on. The color of the card stock is also  a key factor, obviously. Interference colors of Pearl Ex show up wonderfully on dark colored paper, but are not effective on a light background.

One other tip — I struggled with this technique for ages before someone finally figured out what I was doing wrong. My watermark ink was too “juicy” — causing an unattractive smear when I applied the Pearl Ex. If you find the same thing happening, the solution is to partially dry the watermark ink first, using either a heat gun or letting it air dry.

If you dry it too much, the Pearl Ex will not stick, so timing is crucial.

Do you use Pearl Ex in your crafting projects? Leave a comment and a link to your work, if its online.

This Coffee Sleeve Valentine Card was a project for a kid’s craft workshop that I did on Saturday.  For that reason, its designed and decorated very simply, but obviously you could make it as sophisticated as you wanted.

I like this Valentine craft project because it uses recycled sleeves from Starbucks and other coffee houses. I’m a fan of anything recycled.

I suppose you could also call it altered art if you wanted to make it more elaborate. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this example “art.”  LOL

The “I Love You” embellishment on the front was cut from the Cricut Machine using the ; Mini Monograms cartridge.  The hearts inside the card are cut with the Cricut Cartridge: George and Basic Shapes

Here is the video tutorial for this hand made Valentine:

The great thing about scrapboooking is that it can lead you into so many other paper crafts as well — including experimenting with ideas and items that you find in your home or in your daily activities.

Jeffrey Ruddell from Craft Stylish has this amazing post showing how he makes Valentine boxes from an onion. Most accurately, he makes onion ‘pages” and uses them to line and cover a box made from card stock.

Hard to believe, but these things are truly beautiful. He uses the yellow and red outer skins of red and yellow onions, crushes it and attaches it to paper. The color tones and over all effect is quite wonderful.

I don’t know about the odor. It seems to me onion skins would smell — but of course, perhaps the odor is part of the charm. Jeffrey is doing this tongue-in-cheek to speak about a holiday he doesn’t especially enjoy.

I think they are too pretty to throw out. I think if I ever did this, I would look for a way to cold laminate the onion skin paper so I could keep it indefinitely and perhaps use it as an embellishment for a scrapbook.  I usually turn to clear shelf liner when I want to cold laminate an organic item such as dried flowers, leaves, and — I suppose — onion skins.

What do you think?  Would you try making onion skin Valentines?

Scrap Arts, a local  scrapbook store in North Vancouver had a make and take on Friday evening.  This  Valentine card to the left was one of the items we made.

It’s a simple enough card to make, but the way the sentiment is created is somewhat unusual.

The designer spelled
Happy Valentine’s Day on the computer then printed it onto Avery file folder labels.  The printing is at the top of the label; an expanse of white is left underneath.

Using scissors, we snipped down inside each alphabet, snipping down to the bottom of each alphabet but leaving a band of paper intact underneath. We trimmed away the excess paper from the lower case letters, but left the upper case letters as they were.

We glued the sentiment onto the curve of the brown card stock, using a technique similar to the sewing technique known as “easing.”  We made tiny creases at the back where necessary so the paper would curve.

As you can see, it curves quite nicely.  I have never seen this technique used before. I think it is rather attractive and will probably try it again with other cards.

The little heart shapes are cut with a punch and applied using a combination of ordinary glue and 3-D tape to gives some of the hearts dimension.

This Christmas craft project is an accordion mini-album made using a clipboard from the Dollar Store.

It’s easy to make and very attractive. Total cost, if you bought everything from scratch, would be about five dollars, at least where I live. If you dip into your stash and use scraps of paper, it’ll be much less.

I see it as a cute project to give to grandparents for a holiday gift, or as a remembrance of a holiday celebration. If you have the project completed in advance, you could take some pictures on the day of your celebration, crop them in the computer, print them out and send grandma and grandpa home with a reminder of the event.

Naturally, you can decorate it with any theme. It wouldn’t have to be a holiday project unless you wanted it to be.

Here is the video tutorial showing how to make this Christmas craft project using a clipboard: