Saturday 31 January 2009

Art on a budget - Tags

Following on the theme of making art from recycled 'material' that was featured in Craft Stamper - I thought I would show you some things I have been doing with 'stuff' from a charity shop. Once a week I spend a morning at college so go early to get a parking spot - which gives me just enough time to walk into the town centre to a charity shop.

This week I bought some children's dominoes - 50p for a box of 26. Really thick chipboard - what a bargain. So I decided to make a couple of tags - just experimenting with different things before trying them out on something 'precious'.


This is an 'image' on painted a tag painted black with some 'colouring' and then varnished. It has come up really well - I have not done the other side yet - apart from painting it - but I am really pleased with the result - and it was easy to punch a hole through too.




I wanted to make a large tag for the keys to my studio. Somehow they always manage to get 'lost' in out pot of keys - so this tag is now a key ring.

I painted both sides with Gesso to hide the pictures on it, added the black and white image of a Geisha and gave her a coat of Gesso so make her look misty and mysterious. I then highlighted some areas with a black pen, painted it with two coats of varnish (I want it to be strong and waterproof) then gave her a little tinge of pink here and there. The calligraphy are Spring, Summer, Autumn, (couldn't get one for winter) so the last is 'Art'.


I know this is bright and 'in your face' but that is how I wanted it to be so that it is easy to see, if I gets put down somewhere! Again - white Gesso, stamped image, varnished twice, then swiped over with alcohol ink which was an experiment- so I now know that I can varnish something and add colours to it afterwards. And it even coloured the metal eyelet.

This now has a keyring and a couple of very heavy keys attached and it works a treat.



Here is the before photo - they are quite large - 3" x 2" approx





I think 50 for 26 chipboard tags is a bargain - don't you?

4 comments:

Momiji said...

love what you've done with the childrens dominoes..must look out for some as I enjoyed playing in a similar way with chipboard clothes tags recently.

Rosie said...

Of course that's a bargain - you have made a lovely job of them too! I really like what you've done with your book cover - brilliant!!

Anonymous said...

Bargain!And youve ended up creating beautiful pieces of work from them.

Moira said...

Oh Lottie these are beautiful, you are the Domino (well they are kinda like Dominos) Queen.