Repurposing Fun!

Another first for me here -- repurposing and/or upcycling are two new words to me and certainly I want to do my part in preserving this world for my son. So when I saw a challenge that would stretch my crafty skills AND give me a new perspective on re-using things, I decided to play along and created this Mother's Day basket of goodies.

This challenge was set forth by Anita Houston hostessing over at Frilly and Funkie. The name of the challenge is "RePurpose to UpCycle" and we were to use two re-purposed items in our creations.

Well I got into the fun, and have used five re-purposed items!! They were an empty 2-liter soda bottle, used tissue paper, an old atlas, an old glass brooch, and a paper shopping bag. Can you see those five items in the above picture before you follow along in the post?

Anyways, here is how this basket came together...

I found most of these instruction on a blog called Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Starting with the clean, empty soda bottle, I printed out a template and taped it onto the bottle.

After cutting it out, it looked like this. I just had to finish cutting out the petals.

Then, using a tealight (see the link on the blog for instructions), I melted/formed the petals. It was actually pretty easy--the plastic melts very quickly so take your time if you try this. So far, so good.

Now I had to decide how I wanted to decorate it. I didn't much want to do decoupage, so I decided to use alcohol inks. But I painted it white first with an Adirondack Paint Dabber in Snow Cap.

While it was drying, I moved onto planning some embellishments. I have some of my late aunt's costume jewelry, and I wanted to use this brooch as part of this project, so the brooch kind of set the color scheme for me... yellows and greens.

I also needed something to make the handle, so I grabbed some shopping bags... I liked the weight of the white, so I went with that. I cut the bag into 3/4" strips and used Peeled Paint Distress Stain to color them.

Now with the paint dry, I went back to the basket and applied Lettuce, Sunshine Yellow and Pearl mixative alcohol inks over the paint. I didn't want the little fibers that often come off the alcohol ink felt pads, so I used Ranger's Cut and Dry foam instead. Worked great except it does soak up a bit of extra ink... no worries though as there were no fibers!!

(I did go back later and add some Stream alcohol ink as my scheme went to needing some blue).

Then I taped the two handles together and wrapped my strips of stained paper around the plastic. I had managed to separate the brooch into two equal pieces, so I punched a hole on either side of my basket with my Crop-A-Dile and inserted the two pieces. Looking good so far!

Now for some more embellishments: flowers made from a map of the Earth!! This old atlas came in handy as I made a bunch of flowers using Tim Holtz's Tattered Flowers die. I used the smallest flower and attached three flowers together with a brad.

They went on the handle... see why I needed the blue??

Next I made some colored tissue paper using some old tissue (I always save this stuff from any gifts we get, lol) and sprayed it with Distress Reinker mist. Colors were Broken China, Peeled Paint, and Wild Honey mixed with some Gold Perfect Pearls. I dried it with my heat tool--cool!

For my finishing touches, I wrapped two bars of lavender soap in the tissue, adding some vintage labels and ribbon. Then I printed "Happy Mother's Day" on some cardstock and punched it out, inked it and attached it to a pen. I also added a mini-notebook and a nail file. Fini!!

I am entering this in the Frilly and Funky Challenge as well as Simon Says Stamp and Show.... Anything Goes!, Recycle - Reuse - Renew, Recycling with Sonia Suprabha Venugopal!, Anything But a Card, and Artful Times: Sea of Greens challenges.