Recycled wood art, but first Week 114's Friday Smiles

I'm once again joining Annie at A Stitch in Time for Friday Smiles.  I have a LOT to be smiling about this week.  Nothing funny like last week, like when Squiggles met his doppelganger, but a few smiles, regardless.

After being peppered two days in a row with hail and 70-80 mph winds (equivalent to an F1 tornado), my hyacinths are still alive, and one even has new growth.  As an aside, there were over 1000 homes that had no electricity for several days because the winds blew electrical poles over in one part of town.  After seeing the devastation on TV, it reminded me of the domino effect.

Perhaps the biggest smile is because not only is Kathy's Kings and Queens altered book finished, I have also scanned each of the nearly 200 decorated pages.  You can see the non-shrinkable plastic I tried to spray paint using some of my crowns for masks.  For this page, I used two buttons from my stash, and a bit of baker's twine I found at the dollar store (3 rolls for $1.00 USD)

Lady Jane Gray, AKA the Nine Day Queen, may never have worn the crown of England, but she got one from me.  I honored her with one of my shrink plastic crowns.

The only page I added that had not been "gifted" me (an oxymoron, I fear) by Kathy when she dumped this project in my lap after announcing whatever I didn't want, just pitch it in the trash, was from a 1937 Encyclopedia.  You can see George, Elizabeth's father is wearing the crown I gave him after his brother Edward abdicated.  The crown looks a bit worse for wear, though, since it looks rather "smeared" in the scan.

Now please join Annie for even more smiles this week.  All I can say is, I'm smiling because I'm glad my Kings and Queens project is finished.  I'll have it on my blog soon I hope.

Now it's time to do a bit of recycling.

Back in my basement studio, I got out my dedicated beeswax crock pot, plugged it in, then waited.   While I waited, I did a load of laundry and hung it on the line.  Yes, it takes that long for this crock pot to melt the beeswax.

I'm not sure why I have no step-out photos of this, because I had a ton of time.  Instead, I concentrated on this project and forgot to take photos.  The piece of wood on the left began with a few leaves I had pressed from the previous year.  I adhered the leaves and flowers using the beeswax.  I then adhered some of my glittery tissue paper also applying it using beeswax.

The wood on the right was left over from when I attempted to repair a strip of wood outside my back patio.  I had already painted it, and it was screaming for me to not throw it away.  Instead, I added three leaves that I had pressed the previous autumn using beeswax in lieu of glue.

I was hoping for a better view of this one,

and a better view of the two together.

Even though I adore my camera (yes, I realize it's not "new" in the true sense of the word, but it's new relative to the previous seven years worth of lousy photos on my blog), there is only so much I can do

in the poor lighting I must contend with in the basement studio.  Although these are not finished pieces, they are started and that was all the time I could spend on this project today.  

Thanks as usual for joining me on this journey.  Your comments mean the world to me.

Today is Day 10 of 22 in which I altered two pieces of scrap wood using beeswax to adhere pressed leaves and flowers.  I also shared three pages in Kathy's Kings and Queens altered book I will give her next week.  And please don't forget to start your weekend off right by visiting Annie for a few Friday Smiles.