This is no April Fool's Day

Every year in April, I like to share ideas about how to rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle, re-invent, recover, restore, rebuild, revamp, or repurpose something in order to save it from the trash, and ultimately to save our planet.  Which of course, leads to respect: respect for our planet, respect for trash as art, and respect for what you as an artist can achieve.   This all leads up to Earth Day on April 22, or as I prefer to call it, bEARTHday.

Today I began with a project that goes against my better judgment.   I don't want to spend more than THREE hours creating something each day, so I still have time to visit all my blogging friends.  However, this one took nearly three days, or more precisely, 36 hours to create.

At some time or other, we've all had one or more of these wasteful metal hangers.   Dry cleaners send laundry home in them, and people use them when they have garage sales.  They are the same hangers Joan Crawford allegedly beat her step daughter for using.

When people make wreaths, they often use purchased wreaths as part of their supply list.  They can be metal, styrofoam, or even grapevine.  That may be one of the reasons I don't make wreaths during April.  But all that is about to change.

No bits and pieces of fabric are too small for me to save, so I grabbed some of my hand dyed or hand painted fabric left over from previous projects, and tore the pieces into strips.

If there's one thing I don't like, it's to measure precisely.  I also don't like to cut fabric, preferring instead to tear it.   So you can see these are about the size I tore my pieces into.  Each square on the cutter is 1/2 inch.


Fast forward three days, and, although I can barely straighten my hands, here is what I created.

I got the idea from my friend Corrine.  She made a similar project, and the concept stuck with me.

Unfortunately, I didn't like that my front porch was so dirty, 

so I decided to move it inside to the door of my guest bedroom.

I think it will make a good addition to my decorations I plan to make for Easter.

For Day 1 of 22 leading up to bEARTHday, I recycled a metal hanger, and repurposed some of my bits of hand dyed or hand painted fabric.

Thanks for joining me on this journey.  I really appreciate it.