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Valentine Heart Garland

February 13, 2012 in craft, decor, DIY, Paper, reuse, trash

heart garlands

heart garlands

I’m not into flowers and chocolates but I do love an excuse to cut hearts out of paper. In Montpelier, Vermont where I was living the Valentine Phantom would plaster the town with thousands of red hearts. That means spending several hours in sub-freezing temps in the middle of the night taping pieces of paper to every window on every store in town. Amazing when you drive down the street on Valentine’s day…

Sometimes my friend Suki and I would do guerilla arts and crafts for V-tine’s with kids or other women and would write love poems on pretty paper and stick them in random public places…on elevators…bathrooms…etc. I love the idea of spreading love…not just romantic love…but love for everyone.

Anyway, here’s a simple project I used to do with my students. Start by taking a magazine and cut strips about 1″-3″ wide. I used an older Free People catalog.

Fold strips accordion-style…

If it’s helpful, you can draw a heart on one end, but make sure you leave a little room where they will connect to each other on the folds!

Cut the top half…

And then the bottom! Unfold and tape together to hang where you please, or to wrap around a small gift.




vegetable prints

October 19, 2010 in art, craft, garden, nature, print, reuse, trash

all those leftover veggies from the garden can make some nice prints!

these were made from cut lettuce heads, apples, and leaves with acrylic paint on canvas:

lettuce core rose

lettuce core rose

apple core & parsley print

rose from lettuce

rose from lettuce core

apple core detail

apple core star print

apple core star print pattern

apple core star print pattern

bottle cap art

April 18, 2010 in craft, reuse, school, sculpture, trash

i recently finished an artist-in-residence at the Danville School in Danville, Vermont for their three-day arts festival.  the theme was “ReUse” so we made some sculpture out of bottle caps and other items that most people would throw away…

the complete set of photos is on my Flickr page.

cap detail with brushes

cap detail with brushes

bottle cap mural

bottle cap mural

recycled magazine folding origami book

recycled magazine folding origami book

bottle cap sculpture

bottle cap sculpture

trash sculpture detail

trash sculpture detail