Thursday, July 22, 2010

Upcycling and Recycling Art Tips


We all want to get on the "Green" bandwagon if not in a big way, surely in a small way. Today on the Care2 Healthy and Green Living web blog, there was a wonderful video for upcycling your wine corks. I've been saving mine to use as tools in my artwork for years from stamping, textures to blending inks.

With stamping, you can carefully engrave on them with an Exacto knife or burn into them with an electric burning tool. For blending inks on glossy paper, just glue a piece of felt on the end of the cork and it's ready to go. If you only have a few corks, you can drink more vino or you can glue a piece of textured Velcro to the cork end, and then place your small piece of felt. That way you can change them for different colors! Want texture in your polymer clay? Glue small textured materials to the stub or the sides. Cheap and easy, and they are your own, not store-bought!

This video from Youtube, also gives a great idea for Upcyling those after party corks, and you'll be able to use it in your art room for posting messages, or great textures as a huge stamp! Hmm... I'm always thinking! Have a great rest of the day!
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/dont-throw-those-wine-corks-away-upcycle-them.html

5 comments:

  1. Well, thank you Steve! Thanks for taking the time to give mine a looksee!
    I hope mine is fun and informative for you. I'll check yours out now. Have a great rest of the day! (+:

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  2. Great Kate!! I have been saving wine corks for years...have made cork wreaths and have made an entire backsplash over a work table in the kitchen....recycle and make art at the same time!!!

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  3. Who could ask for more, MJ?! Cork wreathes, huh? Never saw one. I bet they're cool. In San FRancisco I saw street trees and where the soil had been exposed corks from wine bottles were planted, pushed into the soil like a mosaic. Pretty neat looking. {+:

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  4. Wine corks do have so many uses. I will often glue textured buttons to them and then use that as a texture tool in my collages. I also use them just to make plain old circles on the backgrounds of my works. Lots of fun. THanks again for your comment on my blog. I am keeping my fingers crossed on the movie now. Seems the kids need work permits and our first rehearsal is tomorrow. A slight impossiblity for me to do all the running around to get that and get them into the city (2 hours away) for the rehearsals at 9:30 AM. THey are nuts!

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  5. That's right Kathy, they can be used for textures. I bet Mary Jane, above here could use her polymer clay, texture it and glue to the cork as well. I have also used styrofoam meat packaging, drawn on it with a ball point pen deeply and stamped with that. Never put it on a cork though.
    You'll get your running around done, and everything will turn out the way it's to turn out. Don't stress. Take it one day at a time. {+:

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