Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The Recycle, Reuse, Redesign Project: Paper Trees

I can't tell you how much I'm loving my new project. As mentioned in my previous post, I'm back in my hometown for a bit. My room here is a plethora of old shit that needs to be upcycled and redesigned.

Some of those projects are going to take a little longer, and I'm only home for so many days, so it looks like I'll be taking things back upstate. Today it was rainy and gross, and after a lunch with some family members and before dinner with some other family members, I decided to sit on the couch, watch stupid TV, and create a project out of some of my parents' old magazines.

I decided to make a tree, inspired by a post I found on Ravelry.com that lead me to this (amazing) tree with magazine paper for leaves. Apparently, the post was originally from a blog called Simply Modern Mom, and the writer put the pictures of the tree in her bedroom. Hers are way more "adult" looking than mine, but I figure it's okay, since I'm only 20. This is a picture of her paper tree:

For my tree, I grabbed a stack of magazines and some glue, as well as a blue piece of paper. I didn't have paints or a canvas, so I had to make the tree trunk out of paper as well, which is how my tree differs from Simply Modern Mom's. Also, I used a collage style, opposed to making the tree leaves all one pattern.

It was a slow process, and I definitely recommend outlining your design first. This makes visualizing cutting pieces much easier.
Here's my finished product:

I scanned it in, so you can kiiiiind of see my pencil lines. I notice that when I look at other people's crafts blogs, their stuff is flawless. And so far my projects have been flawed in some way. But, it's a learning process. So to all new crafters out there, practice makes perfect, and I'm sure we'll get there eventually. =)

However, I am totally proud of myself that my tree looks like something out of an Eric Carle book!

5 comments:

  1. That's lovely! It's wonderful all the motivation and enthusiasm recycling has generated in you.

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  2. Thanks so much! This one was really fun to make!

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  4. Looking good and don't worry about being flawless-- That's not what recycled crafting is all about. It's about recycling and creating something new and unique.

    PS I had to fix my typing.

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  5. Thanks for the encouragement! =)

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