Recycled Materials

Today was a whirlwind of a day....chocked full of good things from start to finish. But I'm tired! So I was glad I had this draft of a post of my art card for the week ready to go. Tracie just got my card in the mail...and I'll share the others as they get to their new owners and I have photos.

This week's theme for our Tiny Pages Art Exchange was my choice: recycle or repurpose. I save everything that might have potential....so I had so many things to choose from. 

Paul and/or I visit Margie at her assisted living facility at last 3 times each week. And everytime we go we electronically sign in and get a name tag. 

We generally go straight to her room and only need to wear the name tags when we are in other spaces in the building.....so I started saving them. Paul has been humoring me bringing his home too...so my pile was growing. He just chuckles when he hands them to me....quietly wondering if I would ever actually use them. 

Now was the time to start....and there will be many opportunities times to come....so keep 'em coming Paul!

Over a week or so I layered and scraped paint onto a little pile of them...basically to create new stickers from old one. 

I really had no idea how I was going to use them on the art card...but I just kept going.  And from now on I'm going to keep a pile on my painting table...and anytime I need to use up extra paint or roll out my brayer...I'm going to be rolling on these tags. 

At first I thought a floral of some sort....but  ended up doing a landscape. The best part about it was NO GLUE WAS NEEDED! Just peel and stick!

I sliced curvy lines from several of the tags and layered them into a landscape. I probably could have used a little more contrast...but I just went with what I had painted.  I didn't love the sun...which is also part of a tag....I wished I would have used layers of yellows along the horizon rather than a sphere. But when I found the yellow "recycled materials" line in a catalog...decided to make that the focal point.  It's little bold and unexpected...but it fits the theme....and it's perfectly imperfect. 

The back is made from recycled or repurposed papers:

1. A Dunkin Doughnuts Bag

2. Two different security envelopes

3. Words from a Gudrun's World catalog

The "You Matter More" words are are part of a security envelope....a new design I'd never seen.

I enjoy using recycled materials!