Scrapping by Design

This altered spool book was a swap at Art for the Creative Mind. We were to use a large spool and make a “page”, as shown. The theme was “It was a dark and stormy night.”

I found a large, wooden spool at the Dollar Store. I removed the thread and painted the spool black with black, acrylic paint.

Rather than use paper for the page, I discovered a strip of old film in my stash. Since it was the perfect size, I opted to use it.

For the image to cover the film strip, I generated a computer image using a couple of pictures. One picture was a stormy sky that I took in the Skagit Valley in Washington State one year. The other image was a picture from Graphics Fairy Blogspot. To add the specific Halloween images, I used a free Halloween font fount on the Internet. It was one of those fonts that makes pictures rather than alphabets.

I used Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 as my photo editing software.

After printing the long photo strip, I glued it to the film strip, then attached the film strip to the spool as shown.

The brown element on the top (and also on the bottom) is simply a couple of buttons from which I have removed the shank.

I added a length of black ribbon so the altered spool book can be tied together.

This strange and peculiar item is an altered kitchen whisk. It is now, at least in my view, a steampunk flying machine.

It is for a swap at Art for the Creative Mind. The theme is “Whisk the Night Away.”  Consequently, the flying machine has some stars!

First, I painted the wire parts of the whisk with several different colours of Luminiere paint.

I had some real peacock feathers that a super-duper lady from AFTCM sent me quite a while ago. I thought they were too pretty to use, but eventually I decided it was wasteful not to incorporate them in a project, so here are some of them. I did keep some for myself!

The front of the flying machine is meant to represent  peacock heads. I drew it by hand on shrink plastic,  including goggles, and then coloured it with pigment inks. I shrunk the plastic and added some rhinestones to emphasize the crest of “feathers” on the head.

The front “wheel” is made from several items made from shrink plastic and strung together with florist wire. I made several stars, cutting with a stencil, using black shrink plastic. I also stamped several steampunk gears on translucent shrink plastic, and used silver heat embossing powder when I shrunk them.

The two heads are separated using a metal socket purchased in a set at the Dollar Store. The back wheel is also a metal socket.

The two round silver things are items from the hardware store. I stamped them with a steampunk design, using black Stazon ink. I placed  two red jingle bells in the center of each.

The front has a black button with silver stars on it, and several strands of chain.

At the end of the handle, where the handle joins the body, I taped the feathers in place, using double sided sticky tape. I covered the other side of the tape with micro beads.

The steampunk flying machine is put together, primarily, using magnetic craft buttons. It can be taken apart readily, therefore, and reassembled just as easily.  I bought the magnetic craft buttons at the Dollar Store, along with the sockets.

It’s pretty weird.

These pictures show the front, back and inside of an altered CD case that I made for Art for the Creative Mind Swap Group. The theme was My Diary.

The case is made of clear plastic, so I took advantage of that by using the front as a window.  I placed a strip of hand crocheted lace along the inside border of the outer cover. I affixed an old fashioned nib pen on the front, tied with organza ribbon  in a pale yellow colour.

Inside, I decorated a CD with scrapbook paper covered with a gel image transfer, and a stamped image of a clock. I nestled the CD on a bed of eyelet lace.

The words, “My Diary” are cut with a Cricut and the Jasmine font.

On the back of the CD, I have embedded more scrapbook paper and a stamped image reading, “Remember”.  The eyelet lace is clearly visible from the back.

The CD case is in the hands of my swap partner now.

These three pictures depict an altered eyeglass case that I made for the Art for the Creative Mind Swap Group. The theme of the swap is “Eye see“.

I was luck to find an eyeglass case with an unusual and elegant shape. It opens at the bottom rather than along one side, and both sides are silver in colour.

Because I wanted to do something a little different, I chose as a theme Louis Armstrong and his popular song, “It’s a Wonderful World.”

How does this fit with Eye See?  Well, the first two lines of the song are this:

“I see fields of green
Red roses too…”

 For the top, I printed out an image of Satchmo, using an image from the public domain. I printed it in stark black and white, then did   a gel image transfer of the picture.  I affixed this over printed text, which showed through the gel medium image.

I glued scalloped white lace along all four sides, and added two rhinestone earrings as embellishments on each end.

I thought the silver sides were attractive  as they were and I opted against covering them up. Instead, I used black rub-ons to decorate. The one on the side shown reads simply, Wonderful. It goes with the theme.

Since the top and sides were stark black, white and silver, I wanted to show a blaze of color when someone opened the case.

On the left inner side, I lined the case with floral papers.  I found a small Christmas ornament shaped like a trumpet. It was blue in colour, but I rubbed over it with Inka Gold. Some of the blue shows through but I like that look.

I glued the trumpet in place, and added some red and pink rosettes, along with a few pearl beads.

For the right inside, I did a second image transfer of the first verse of What a Wonderful World. I glued it over music paper so the music shows through. To this, I added a couple of yellow and white rosettes, a pearl, and some punched leaf shapes.

And that is another example of altered art.

These altered wooden spoons are intended to reflect Elvis Presley playing All Shook Up. I made them for a swap at Art for the Creative Mind Swap Group. The theme was “Stirred, Not Shaken.”

This is my take.

I had two wooden spoons, one large and one small.

To make the guitar, I chose the smaller spoon and painted it a dark brown in colour. I drilled small holes near the top of the spoon handle and at the tip of the spoon part. I strung silver wire through these holes to represent the strings. I used narrow strips of black card stock to form the frets.  I strung a few metallic beads on the end of the part that is called the headstock.

To make the Elvis impersonator, I painted the larger spoon with flesh coloured acrylic paint.

I made the face and hands from Polymer clay, using a mold.

Elvis’ hair is made from an old black nylon stocking.

The clothing is fashioned from white ribbon and decorated with yellow rhinestones.

After I took the picture, I added a gold necklace using gold metallic string.

One person said this is an art doll.  Perhaps it is. It is definitely an altered wooden spoon or two. 🙂

This project is an accordion album made from a file folder. The theme is “Sewing“. I incorporated an old Vogue pattern, a red zipper that had been in my sewing box for about twenty years and some vintage clip art.

To embellish, I bought a small sewing kit at the Dollar Store and used the bits and pieces as decoration.  I also used a few buttons, rick rack and lace from my fabric bag.

I also made a video showing how I folded the file folder. I will post the video tomorrow.

I am entering this project in Playing in Paradise Challenge #113. The theme for this challenge is to use something recycled, in honour of Earth Day on April 22.

This is the third and final bookmark I have made from the abandoned leather belt found in the recycle bin.

This is for a swap at Art for the Creative Mind swap group. The theme of the bookmark swap is “books”.

These are the links to the first two that I did from the old belt:

Bookmark from Altered Belt #1:
Bookmark from Altered Belt #2

I found an old piece of wallpaper and glued that to the bookmark as shown in the picture.

To incorporate the theme “books”, I used alphabet beads to spell the word “NOVEL”. I sewed the beads in place using mint colored embroidery cotton. They are covering the belt holes that were already there.

I put a small mint colored binder ring in one end and attached a little silver charm to it.

I glued mint coloured buttons down the bottom part of the belt, and added some fibre trim here and there. A few black and crystal rhinestones are the finishing pieces.

Altered art is such fun to make.

This is the second bookmark I have made from an abandoned leather belt.

Here is the link to the post telling about the first one: Altered Belt Becomes a Bookmark.

This strip of belt is cut from the middle of the belt.

I painted it copper using Jacquard Lumiere fabric paint.  Fabric paint is more flexible, making it less likely to crack and break from a soft surface like a belt.

Find out about this paint at Amazon: Jacquard Products No.2 Lumiere Exciter Pack, Jewels/Halo, 9-Color

The copper paint I had was quite dry and ready to throw out. However, for this purpose, it worked beautifully. I smeared it on using a stick and let it dry all bumpy and lumpy.  When it was dry, I smeared a little Luminescent Pearl Lumiere paint over it in spots.

When that dried, I used alternating white alphabet stickers and alternating blue stickers to spell out words pertaining to books and reading.

I had a lovely strip of black velvet ribbon that a Secret Santa sent me at Christmas. I attached a strip of this on the bottom and attached long dangles of the ribbon on the top. I ended with a bow shaped eyelet to attach the ribbon, and some beads that were black and clear rhinestones.

I found an abandoned leather belt in the recycle bin a few days ago. I was signed up for a bookmark swap at Art for the Creative Mind, so when I saw the belt, an idea started to germinate.

No rule says a bookmark has to be paper, after all. I figured that  this men’s belt would easily make three or more bookmarks. I wanted to make the bookmark long enough that the belt and any embellishments added at either end would dangle out of the book and not tear or damage the pages.

This is the first bookmark I made. I did some stamping with white Stazon ink, then added alphabet stickers to spell the word BOOK.  (Book was the theme of the swap).

I attached a binder ring to the belt buckle, and then used my soldering iron to attach three butterfly charms to the ring.  I also soldered the belt buckle prong closed while the iron was hot.

At the other end, I glued a plumbing washer in place, and decorated it with some silver beads.

I glued the other silver beads in place as shown.

I use the Simply Solder craft kit as shown here at Amazon: Simply Solder

This is video demo of the Romantic Era Altered Book that I described at this post: Altered Book with Romantic Era Theme.

The video shows how I cut and glued the book to form the drawer.