Whirly Man Trash Art
This piece all started with an old plastic Easter egg we had bought for our dog Maxx about ten years ago. We actually purchased two–one for Maxx and one for Angel our next door neighbor’s dog, which was one of our rescues. Angel chewed through hers in no time but Maxx never really liked the egg except in the winter when there was snow on the ground and he would slide on it throughout the yard. The egg was always around the yard in one corner or another. We never wanted to get rid of it, so in the yard it stayed.
Last summer, my husband started to clean out a spot on the side of the garage we use to keep pieces for future projects. After cleaning out the area we were left with a bunch of items we wanted to recycle. There was some tubing from our old tru-link fence, an old plastic bowl we had painted blue, a broken Stanley broom, a old paint brush, an old whirly flower, a blue piece from the top of a squeeze mop, an old sofa spring, a crystal glass piece, half-round glass pieces, and of course the egg. How David saw a man in all of this, I’ll never know. One day when I got home from work, he surprised me with this piece he named whirly man. Below are photos of whirly man and the trash art pieces used in the process.
Whirly Man Trash Art
Whirly Man Trash Art
Whirly Man Parts
Whirly Man Egg
Whirly Man Gets Eyebrows
Whirly Man Face
Recycled Bell Phone
This old Bell phone was recycled by David Romaxx by painting it red and using a spring recycled from an old couch. David likes movement in his outside art and the spring provides movement with the wind, and even the birds like to perch on it from time to time. Re-embellish, re-invent, recycle.
Hot Line Recycled Phone
Recycled Beer Bottle Art
The beer bottle wall piece was made from an old round piece of wood (from an old chair). The bottles were left over from a barbeque party and the sun face was made from hydrolcal plaster poured into a plastic mold. David added some glass embellishments and then added grout to the whole center piece. The bottle caps were screwed into the wood and the bottles were then screwed into the caps. We have had this piece for about a year now. It’s a big conversation piece whenever we have guests over to our home. artist: David Romaxx.
Beer Bottle Art by David Romaxx
Embellishing A Black Lacy Blouse
Materials I used to embellish blouse:
Black lacy trim
Black sewing thread and sewing needle
Several years ago, I bought this blouse to wear to an anniversary party. The blouse is black satin with lacy see-through sleeves and rhinestone buttons. Although I’ve only worn it several times since that occasion, I’ve always wanted to embellish it by adding something more to it, I just couldn’t figure out what type of embellishment would look the best.
Recently, I went shopping at a fabric store and in the trims section I found a beautiful black lacy trim. The moment I saw it I knew it would be the perfect embellishment to sew onto my black blouse. I was thrilled with the results of the lace around the cuffs, so I decided to add trim to the collar as well. I just love the new look of my blouse and look forward to wearing it again.
Embellishing-Cuffs
Embellished Cuffs
Black Satin Blouse
Recycling Trash Items
One of the most important craft projects for us is to recycle as much as we can. The house is a great place to start your recycling projects. What objects do you tend to throw out the most in your trash? Is it plastic, paper, glass or metal? In our case it’s paper from all the junk mail we still receive. Since we shred all of our paper scraps we end up with a lot of confetti style shredded paper by the bag full. So we have tried a few creative ways to incorporate this shredded paper into our arts and crafts instead of the recycle trash. In a previous article we talked about using paper mache instead of plaster in your plaster-craft molds. And in future articles we will be using the different kinds paper items you could recycle at home. Not only is recycling great for our environment, but it’s also a fun way to craft with family or friends. This summer we had a very bad start to the spring season in Chicago.
Cola Bottle Flowers by Diana & David Romaxx
We lost a lot of our plants we had kept inside for the winter. One such plant was a daisy tree we had for over four years. It started out fine, but by mid-June we lost it. But around our house my husband and I are always creating something out of throw-away items. Shown are photos of two of the recycling projects we created for our yard. My husband removed the daisy tree from the large center pot and cleaned the dry roots out very thoroughly and let it dry outside for about one month. He then painted the roots purple and the trunk gold. He added two wine bottle caps to the front side of the roots and a ruby round half glass bead over each bottle cap to complete the eyes. He then added an old waterbottle and an old telephone cord. It looked like some strange creature from outer space. He put a metal rod into the base that holds the piece yet allows movement with the wind. The flowers in the planter were all made from forty recycled liters of cola and one-inch recycled dowel rods. They really added a lot of charm to our yard and we can reuse them for many, many years. Re-embellish, reinvent, recycle.
Root Man by David Romaxx