After making my first assemblage piece two years ago, I started throwing everything I would normally throw into a junk drawer into a box in my craft room. Inspired by such members as @geekgirl and @sheepblue, I told myself that I would make another when the box got full. Well, the box got full!
I started by casually laying out what was in the box.
I painted an 8x10 canvas and then started gluing on the pieces. I started with the broken half of a small embroidery hoop as my focal point. Ditched the spoon. I started with the larger pieces and then just filled in with random beads, screws, springs, seed beads, pen caps, broken jewelry.
If you run out of things, you can fill in with washers, pop can tops, screw topsâŚI even used some of my old wooden skewers that I use to poke holes into my glue bottles.
After I was happy with the layout, I sprayed the whole thing with glossy black paint. Then, I dry brushed some metallic blue paint over the entire thing, wiped some of it down with a baby wipe.
If you need more stuff, you can go back in and glue on more. You can also repaint or remove paint. This is a very forgiving project!
I really love how this came out! Itâs amazing how much itâs transformed when covered with the black paint. Iâve been working on cleaning and organizing, and gathering up a lot of bits and bobs and tossing them in a box with the intention of creating an assemblage piece for my classroom. I donât have enough pieces just yet, but I have a feeling that Iâll have a decent collection of stuff in a few months. Might have to raid my desk drawers for some of those items that I âheld onto for the dayâ for my students that they never claimed. Some of them have been in the desk for many years, now!
AIMR
(Linda -2023 is a use the good stuff year! :us:)
#13
I pick up stuff when I am walking on the beach as well. A lot of crap washes up but most of the stuff is from humans that think the beach is their own personal landfill. Bottle caps are everywhereâŚearbuds, broken sunglasses, etc. I wonât pick up stuff off the street but I feel like the sand and water has sanitized most of the junk I find on the beach. I do find shells as well but they are organic and will eventually disintegrateâŚmetal and plastic work well for these assemblages!
You should do it and then show it to your kidsâŚwith a lesson on how long some things last!
Excellent idea! I hadnât thought to create a lesson around it! Now, Iâll need to be a little more intentional about hunting for things. And, I hadnât thought about the gross factor of street items, so thanks for that reminder, too. I have a bunch of Pez dispensers and Happy Meal toys that are destined for the canvas. I have some metal objects, but now I think I might create one solely out of plastic pieces to really hammer the message home. Iâm pretty confident I can accumulate plenty without much difficulty, sadly.
AIMR
(Linda -2023 is a use the good stuff year! :us:)
#15
There are some truly fabulous artists that create huge pieces of work using everything made of plasticâŚtoothbrushes, medicine bottles, candy dispensers (Pez, TictacsâŚ)âŚyou will definitely have plenty to work withâŚyou could set up a canvas for the kids to glue on their own discarded plastics and make it a group effortâŚthey will quickly realize how much stuff we discardâŚ
CONGRATULATIONS! Your beautiful craft is one of this weekâs Featured Projects! 