Christmas Decor and Bows from the Sunday News.

michele made me: Tutorial: Quick and Pretty Junk Mail Gift Bow

MERRY CHRISTMAS.... Yea I know I haven't been around.... Struggling to find the spirit of Christmas and just Motivation in General..... DID I ever mention I suffer from Depression? Yea and so sometimes I can't seem to get it together ..... Anyway I found this super wonderful way to Use up all that Christmas ad and insert from the sunday paper...... Michele Makes gift bows and package decor..... Yrs back I posted about the bows I made with magazines, but she steps it up here, I really Like these.

What do you Know?

Q: What does a Slinky, a PET bottle and ribbon have in common?


A: A YARD SPINNER

Click to enlarge

I had all those PET Beads...Not exactly charm bracelet material. I thought maybe the art teacher could use them for the younger kids at school for embellishing...I mean How many times Have you seen macaroni used as beads, right? But in the mean time I thought this would be a good use for a few for me.

My youngest grandson had a metal slinky that lasted all of 6 hours ( If that) My daughter asked me If I wanted it after it was all twisted and tangled and at first i said NO. But after about an hour I had this nagging feeling to go rescue it, ( Ah the packrat on my shoulder) so we ripped open the trash bag and fished out this tangled mess of wire. I took my heavy duty metal snips and snipped it down to a few coils at a time, discarding the stuff that could not be saved ( not a lot). I have tons of ribbon and ribbon remnants that my craft store was selling...A bag of remnants for a dollar...yup a whole buck $1.00 Cha-ching!

After drilling holes in the ends with my NEW hole punch for metal I took E-6000 ( the one with the small metal nose) and stuck the nose into the bead and gave it a small squirt to hold the bead in place. I did this around the coil. Then I took some ribbons ( about 6) and gave them a small tack with needle and thread to hold them together.

I wrapped some silver copper wire around the end and came up with a loop.

I attached Fishing spinners to each end.

Attached the ribbon.

Used 30 LB test fishing line to attach the other end to the tree limb and .....

VIOLA SPINNER!

Plastic Beads Tut

I did a Tut for my PET Posies ( here) I used the bottom of my bottle. The rest of my bottle I cut into strips ( cut around the bottle not lengthwise) I wrapped them around a pair of needle nose pliers and hit them with a heat gun. This has been done by others by dipping them in boiling water as well, although I never tried that method.

For color I used transparency paint, & nail polish ( left it dry before rolling it and heating it) I also used scrap book paper and photos that I ran thru my shredder and made into strips that I cut down to size and layed them in the middle before rolling.

Notice of NON-Guilt!

I refuse. As of this day I refuse to feel guilty if I cannot recycle or re-use plastic! I got around my guilt of throwing out boxes,papers,magazines because they bio-degrade.

Did you know that my trash company in my county will NOT recycle newspapers or paper products? Only bottles,cans, and plastic and last night I saw a notice in my market that the state? county? is now placing a 5 cent deposit on water bottles! Oh I wanna see how many ppl actually bring water gallons and bottles back to the store!

Anyway, I digress.

I refuse to feel guilt over the fact that I cannot recycle this crap. I am being overrun and I cannot function to work with the crap I already have piling up around me!!!!!!

It is blocking my Chi!

My creative flow is stagnating and I can't function, I can't create!

Why don't we punish the manufactures who have taken our choices? Coffee don't come in glass or even cans anymore it's all plastic! ( if they have cans I don't drink that brand, I am a folgers girl!)

When I was a kid I used to think about what would happen when the dump was full, where would they go next? As an adult I see and smell them in neighborhoods, and pray they don't put one in mine. ( Who the hell wants to smell that????!)

It was a problem that seemed bigger then me and so i didn't think about it. Today with the green movement it has become everyones problem, at least those who choose to do something.
I like to look at this as raw material to work with, one less thing I need to buy to be creative.
Aluminum cans are like blank canvases.
Plastic bags and video tapes are yarn.
etc etc

BUT

NOW

I

HAVE

TOO

DAMN

MUCH

STUFF!

I saved empty coffee containers as storage for my beads and stuff, but now I have too many!!!

Piles of magazines, bags or Plarn, containers and bags of fabric, shelves of crafting supplies, containers of tiles ( they re-did the bathroom upstairs over the summer...A dumpster divers dream!) etc etc....It never ends. Oh and the Aluminum cans and plastic bottles...OY!

I am at the point of whats really important....I am on a soul Journey and quite frankly the condition of my soul is more contingent on how I treat ppl and not whether or not i recycled this weeks coffee can, Ya think?

So If I let one go to the garbage man dont get mad at me!