RR &R July Challenge

Welcome to our new DT member, Beverly Gotthardt, at Recycle, Re-Purpose & Re-Invent. She's an awesome addition to our team. Be sure to visit her blog as well as those of my other teamies.


For July's Challenge at Recycle, Re-Purpose & Re-Invent, the theme is Anything Goes as long as you use something recycled on your piece. Remember to identify what is recycled or repurposed when you write your post. I used I used this stunning digital images of Cosmo by Chris Stern at CS Designs  to play with this time. I am wild about her. Her face is beautiful, her expression intriging, and her eyes just pull me in.

I used a metal gift card case left over from a Christmas present as the foundation for this piece. I layered the background with dark blue felt for the night sky. I wanted to create the planets and universe for this piece. I used a recycled piece of a hand-embroidered doily for the moon, and took apart an old pair of earrings for the scattered turquoise stars.

Cosmo was coloured with Prismacolor pencils using OMS to blend. Star charms from an old bracelet were used in her hair once the loops were cut off. She was mounted on a piece of  painted and faux finished watercolour paper left over from another project.

Then came her planets. When we first moved to this house which is an oldie but goodie, we were digging to expand the flower beds. We came across a bunch of marbles buried in the dirt with a few other tiny toys. So charmimg! Cosmo's planets are three of those marbles. A binder ring from my old school stash was used for the ring on the green and red planet. Because the blue and green marble looks like the planet earth, I placed a #3 metal tab next to it...third planet from the sun. In my imagination, Cosmo is looking with wonder at this huge and spectacular universe which explains the banner.

Finally, to frame the whole collage and add sparkle, more of that ball trim from the toolbox was glued to the edge of the metal case. Lots of recycling and re-purposing on this project. That combined with the gorgeous image was what made it so fun to create. I hope you will join this month's challenge at Recycle, Re-Purpose & Re-Invent. It's so fun to see the inventive ways you use things.

Thanks for visiting my little piece of the universe :)

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie