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 tops…I 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! It’s amazing how much it’s transformed when covered with the black paint. I’ve 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 don’t have enough pieces just yet, but I have a feeling that I’ll have a decent collection of stuff in a few months. Might have to raid my desk drawers for some of those items that I “held onto for the day” for my students that they never claimed. Some of them have been in the desk for many years, now!
AIMR
(Linda -2026 time to regroup and renew :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 everywhere…earbuds, broken sunglasses, etc. I won’t 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 disintegrate…metal and plastic work well for these assemblages!
You should do it and then show it to your kids…with a lesson on how long some things last!
Excellent idea! I hadn’t thought to create a lesson around it! Now, I’ll need to be a little more intentional about hunting for things. And, I hadn’t 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. I’m pretty confident I can accumulate plenty without much difficulty, sadly.
AIMR
(Linda -2026 time to regroup and renew :us:)
15
There are some truly fabulous artists that create huge pieces of work using everything made of plastic…toothbrushes, medicine bottles, candy dispensers (Pez, Tictacs…)…you will definitely have plenty to work with…you could set up a canvas for the kids to glue on their own discarded plastics and make it a group effort…they will quickly realize how much stuff we discard…
You made me just think about a class of kids. Could you ask the kids to bring their parent’s junk drawer stuff and pray that no one brings condoms? LOL
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AIMR
(Linda -2026 time to regroup and renew :us:)
18
I think this is an excellent project for kids. You can teach them a lesson about waste, the environment, etc. It is amazing what gets discarded.
You could give them an assignment to rethink every single thing they throw out daily and start a collection of the smaller items, like caps, string, broken pencils, pen caps, jewelry, etc. Give them a mission to find things in a workshop or garage…etc.
Oh ooooooooooo Beware ye children of crafters, lol.
You could also introduce the art of making journals. I’ve been thinking for a while to make a junk food journal. I’m worried about attracting bugs but I’m going to ask the vendor for fresh papers???
CONGRATULATIONS! Your beautiful craft is one of this week’s Featured Projects! 