Trash-to-treasure

As you know, I'm a firm believer in recycling and not throwing much away....not if it can be re-purposed.  It should come as no surprise that our 2-car garage can only house 1 car.  Here are some items destined for the trash.

Let's start with a child's bicycle wheel that's missing some spokes and painted yellow.  The paint job isn't very good, either.  The old book was just old and smelled musty.  I don't know about you but we get quite a few of those offers with 'get our credit card today'.  In one of the junk drawers I found old hotel room keys left from my husband's business trips.  They're good for spreading glue, gesso, spackle, etc.  But all these items are about to become art.

Sepia, Coffee and Olive archival inks make a big difference, don't they?

I covered the cards with green checked paper then distressed the edges with brown inks.  'Bloom' is stamped in Jet Black archival ink.  The stamp set is called Jersey UC by Making Memories.  Foam blocks, had them for years.  They are super when you need bold letters that aren't strictly linear. Therre are like little bites taken out of the letters.  Small clothespins were inked with brown distress stains.  Kinda reminds you of the days when  kids would attach playing cards to their bicycle wheels, doesn't it?

Quite a few pages were removed from the book and colored with yellow, orange, red and green distress stains.  The posy layers were cut from a set of scalloped circles by Spellbinders.  The center of the flowers are large brads which I used to wrap around the spokes.  Each layer was crumpled once it was stuck on the brad.  The leaves were cut from the Spellbinders set of sunflowers.   The leaves were also crumpled, distressed with brown inks and glued to the backs of the flowers.

Some floral wire was wrapped around an old paint brush then stretched out and wound around the spokes.  Leftover black screen from our enclosed patio windows was cut into narrow strips for the bow (upper left from the top center of the wreath).  Since all the items were destined for the trash, I have no qualms about making changes should the weather damage the wreath or when the seasons change.



I found the inspiration for my bike wreath here.  After that it was just a matter of time waiting to find a bike rim in someone's trash pile.


So, how do you like my trash-to-treasure project?  I think it will work nicely for this week's challenge over at Simon Says Stamp & Show where you're supposed to use your favorite stamp.  Like so many of you, it's hard to choose just one.  But this alphabet is my favorite when I need large letters.  It works well with so many styles of art.