April's Artful Reader's Club entry

Darcy's Artful Reader's Club is once again posting their entries.  As many of you know, through the 22 days leading up to Earth day, I focused on projects that showed how to rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle, re-invent, recover, restore, or repurpose something in order to save it from the trash.  So this book was the perfect addition for April's ARC.

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Oxmoor House; 2 edition (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157486078X
• ISBN-13: 978-1574860788
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 8.1 x 0.6 inches

This is what the book looked like at Amazon, and this

is what it looks like under the harsh lighting above my kitchen table.  Once again, this is a very, very old book, but at least it is hard cover, so it is sturdy.

As you can see,

there are lots of projects, one for nearly every page in the book.  Also, there are only four chapters,

with each opening with a preview of the projects you will find in that chapter.

One of the few things I liked about this book was it showed the recycled materials you would need for each project.  Some of the projects were actually rather timeless, while others screamed "trashy," rather than treasure.

One old project the authors used was the flattened, then painted, aluminum can.  This wreath included bubble wrap, fabric scraps, the painted cans, a bow, and a wire clothes hanger.

I can (and did during the month) think of several better ways to use plastic, although I suspect if I had small children I might feel a bit different.

There were quite a few projects that took on a country flair, and I honestly lost interest in country decorating in the 80s.

Next came the chapter on gifts.

Not the kind of gifts I would make,

even though I thought the sewed items were timeless.

With the advent of the internet and YouTube (which I can now once again access), you don't need a book to show you how to revamp a chair.

And even the nature crafts, like this twig-framed mirror, looked outdated, at least to me.

Although I would NEVER be able to make this necktie pillow, because I couldn't sew a straight line if my life depended on it, I liked the concept.

The final chapter had several projects for children

and a rehash of items we saw in previous chapters, but presented in another way.

These bride and groom covered bottles reminded me of an even nicer bottle cover my friend Halle (check out her cool blog) sent me several years ago.  I much prefer Halle's bottle cover!

There were patterns in the back of the book,

but I got confused at how some of the patterns overlapped.

Also in the back were a few instructions, like how to make a bow, and how to embroider.

And finally, the back cover of the book sums up what I suspect the authors felt were the best of the best.

So what did I think of the book?  Although I read every word, I got nothing out of it.  There really wasn't much inspiration because these projects were simply not my style.  Those of you who know me, know I don't do "cute."  And the majority of the projects were on what I thought was the "cute" side of the spectrum.  For that reason, as well as the book's age, and the fact many of these projects looked trashy to me, I DO NOT recommend it.  Save your money!!

What, you ask, will be my inspiration piece.  Something trashy that can be turned into a treasure, of course.

I began with a genuine piece of trash,

an old circuit breaker strip that was now dead.  I knew I needed to take it apart, and got out my itsy-bitsy screwdrivers.

If nothing else, this was going to be fun just taking it apart in order to see how it originally went together.

Next it was time to remove the final pieces

and throw away anything I didn't feel I could use.  I fell in love with that blue capacitor, and hope to use it as the inspiration in something very soon.  But for now, I will concentrate on just the plastic piece and disassemble the rest.

Next I did an internet search looking for totem poles because I thought the circuit breaker strip looked like a totem pole.  Have I mentioned I have an active imagination?

In the basement studio, I assembled the supplies I would use (from left):
Disposable glove
Various leftover bits of polymer clay
Piece of circuit breaker strip
Sheet of white paper used to keep the clay off my self-healing mat

 I began with a piece of copper polymer clay.  I spent a long time rolling it out,

 then chose turquoise, hoping it would go well with the copper.  You can see some of the copper color that came off the clay onto the white paper.  I was glad I took that extra precaution.  By the way, those one-size-fits-all-gloves are way too big for my hands.

I was able to use all the copper, mostly on the ears, but also on three of the noses, but I had a great deal of the turquoise left over.

After the  polymer clay baked (yes, I baked the strip along with the clay), I wanted to make sure the clay was adhered to the strip.  Thankfully, I took this picture before I took it upstairs, because

as I was moving the totem after adhering the strip to the circle of wood, I dropped the assemblage and the ears broke.  BROKE!!!  No way to fix them properly without buying more copper clay!!  Besides, it was too late to redo the piece, especially since the strip was already attached to the wooden circle, a piece I found in my scrap wood pile.

So I did the best I could and tried to glue the ears back in place. What I got was a deformed totem pole.

This was not exactly how I planned for this piece to look, but sometimes things don't turn out the way they should.

Here is another view.  I'm really sick about dropping the piece, but I have to chock it up to hurrying through the final part of this process.

It only took me three months, but I finally realized I am supposed to tell which book I will be reviewing for May.  So I have chosen Collage Playground: A Fresh Approach to Creating Mixed-Media Art by Kimberly Santiago

I hope you didn't forget to leave a comment on last month's ARC to be entered to win the book "Layered, Tattered, and Stitched" by Ruth Rae.  Using a Random number generator, here is the winner:

And the winner is Halle who wrote "Nice review...very in depth. Thanks for the chance and the second book. :)"  Halle, I have your address, so expect your book soon!