Monday, September 18, 2017

Christmas wall Hanger - a Repurposed Project

I was cleaning my craft room the other day and came across a million (well not that many, but quite a few) CD's that I wasn't using and wouldn't be using.

Being in a recycling frame of mind, I paused before tossing them in the garbage!  Perhaps I should be putting them in the recycling bin instead.  Between the pause in that thinking, I had a creative moment!  Why not alter or repurpose them!

I had no clear vision what I would do with them, but my first thought was to paint each with white acrylic paint and go from there.  As I was painting, I started to visualize each CD as a piece of art, covering them with DSP and die cuts etc.

The result?  A Christmas wall hanging.  And for that I would need a total of 6 CD's - a decorated one for the top and bottom, and one for each of the letters spelling HOME. So I painted all six on both sides and plotted.

The first task was to cover the front of each altered CD with DSP, but now I had a problem!

Each CD was 5 1/2" in diameter. The circle die cuts that I had could not cut a circle large enough to cover the CD - so out came my ancient very first die cutter - my colluzzle.  I can't believe I even knew where it was!!  This tool was perfect for die cutting the circles for each of the six altered CD's .  Although the pattern of the DSP was different for each CD I kept the colour scheme the same - tones of Whisper White, Soft Sky, and Silver.

The resultant wall hanging was very difficult to photograph.  The picture was either over exposed or under exposed.  So, below the wall hanging below I will post a picture of each of the elements.


The First Two Elements:

After adding DSP, I made a Rosette with another pattern of the DSP and on top of that I added a large die cut snowflake (die now retired) and finished the top with 3 mini White bows.








For the second one, the Basic Black "H" was surrounded by a large die cut silver tree from "Santa's Sleigh and a cluster of Dazzling Diamond trees from "Christmas Carols"  Look carefully and you can see a small silver deer perched on top of the letter.



"O" was devoted to music.  A smaller circle of the Merry Music DSP was die cut and sponged with Basic Gray.  Then I die cut the French Horn, and a musical note in Gold Foil paper, the drummer in Crumb Cake and arranged them around "O".  A silver bow made from last year's SAB ribbon was added to the bottom of the "O".







The Silver Foil deer is to the left of the "M" over which is hanging a Dazzling Diamond Glimmer paper wreath, both of which are from Santa's Sleigh.  A die cut tree from Carols of Christmas sits on the right.



The letter "E" sits in a Dazzling Diamond glimmer sleigh, with some of the contents scattered on the left- with the bow sticking to the corner of the letter "E".  A Dazzling Diamond snowflake die cut from the Seasonal Layers Thinlets hovers over the right of the letter.







This bottom piece is probably the heaviest in weight, which allows the project the hang straight.
Two rosettes of different sizes sit in the middle.  In the center of that is one small white mini bow.




Each decorated element is held together with  1 1/2"  wire rimmed silver ribbon which has snow flakes embedded in it. This ribbon I had purchased about 8 years ago and forgotten about but perfect for this project.
To provide additional support, I cut some card stock slightly smaller that the ribbon and adhered it to the back of each repurposed CD.

I made a large bow and a hanger loop at the top, and double folded the ribbon at the bottom.

It's not a perfect project, but I had a lot of fun making it.

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