recycle

Before you throw out your junk mail and catalogs, give them another look with your art eye. I do this with catalogs. Clothing and quilting catalogs are the best. I also use colorful envelopes.

Pick out the colorful and fun prints that you like. Cut them into one inch strips and put thru the Xyron sticker maker ( make them just long enough to wrap around the straw) Don't worry about the patterns of the pictures. Use the permanent cartridge in the Xyron. Cut the strip on a diagonal when you remove it from the Xyron. Take a drinking straw and wrap the printed paper around it, putting the straight side on first. Then using scissor's cut the printed part off.

I put this piece on the end of a wooden dowel. Then roll it onto an embossing pad and sprinkle clear UTEE (ultra thick embossing enamel) on it and use the heat gun to melt it. Then dip each end into gold embossing powder and now you have a neat bead to embellish with.

These are beads I made with photo's from the Coldwater Creek catalog. I stamped them and used them as sample's at my stamping class last night. They look like glass with metal ends.