Tutorial: Transformed Tins (Part 1)

Visit a flea market and you'll find a ton of these. Most garage sales can hook you up. Find a rummage sale and you'll find a gold mine of... tins. Odds are if you search your garage or attic you'll even find a box of these. I've an idea- why not try using them as a metal substrate in your mixed media art? Either the cover or the container itself are fabulous bases for either a shadowbox assemblage or a collaged wall hanging. I'm sure the more you give this some thought the more the ideas will come. I'd love to know what you come up with so please leave a comment if something occurs to you. Together we'll transform the tins of the world into art. :)
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"Fly"- Collaged Tin Cover

Materials and Tools
Cover to an old metal tin
Gesso
Acrylic Paint
16-gauge steel wire
Embroidery Floss
Butterfly Sticker- Artsy Urban by Melody Ross
Scrap of vintage book paper
Glue stick
Pencils- 2B and white colored
Ink pad
Clear Acrylic Alpha Stamp Set and Block
Paintbrush
Needle
Scissors
Wire Cutter
Cylinder with 1" diameter
Crop-a-dile

Directions
Step One- Using a paintbrush or sponge brush, cover your entire tin cover with gesso. Let dry. Don't worry about even or perfect coverage here. Applying the acrylic in the next step will cover up any text or imagery that's on the tin, but I rather like some of it showing through on the backside. .


Step Two- Choose a color and haphazardly paint the tin with acrylic paint, letting some of the white of the gesso show. I used the pool color by Ranger. It comes in the little daubers. I wouldn't recommend buying all your paint in these little things. I just happened to have it on hand and wanted this color. Much cheaper to buy it in the craft bottles. :)

Step Three- Using your 1" diameter cylinder, wrap the 16-gauge wire around it to form a coil. As you wind, slide off the coils, and continue to wrap until it's your desired length.




Step Four- Using your hands, flatten and then seperate the coils to form loops. Their shape and whether they overlap or not is the result of how much you seperate them.




Step Five- Cut a 24" length of embroidery floss and tie one end to the end of your looped edging. This is to anchor the floss.





Step Six- Use your wire loops as a guide, and with a 2B pencil, place a mark where you'd like to make a hole in the tin's edge. Mark at the point that the wire crosses at the bottom of the loop. That is where you'll be stitching your wire to your tin. Using a crop-a-dile, chomp 1/8" holes into the edge of your tin where marked.


Step Seven- Using your needle and floss, begin to stitch the wire loops to the edge of your tin as shown. Go over and around the wire, and through the hole in the tin.




Step Eight- Then with needle and thread, cross over the wire that is in between the loops and bring your needle to the back of the tin and ready to insert into the next hole. Then from the back, bring it through the loop again, and then insert into the hole. Repeat until entire length is tacked down.



Step Nine- When you've reached the point you started at, cut any excess wire and wrap the cut end around the first loop you stitched down. Finish the piece by adding the sticker. Then cut out a bit of old book paper and using a clear acrylic letters, stamp the word "fly". Doodle with pencils around word. Use a glue stick to adhere below the butterfly stamp.

Butterflies on My Brain...

I've got butterflies on my brain. Maybe because I can feel them so much in my stomach right now. This week has been spent doing some serious brainstorming. I'm trying to come up with some new projects and although I had a ton of ideas I didn't really know where to start. So I did some sketches, and planned some things out step by step on paper. Some of these ideas came about because they were variations of other projects I've done. It was just a matter at looking a little differently at what I had already made. Like the lamp. I found out this week that the lamp I was planning on using in one publication couldn't be used as I had already published it somewhere else. These were two different formats and for some reason I didn't put two and two together that published is published regardless of the format. The lamp was a great piece and I was actually counting on it wow-ing the publishing folks into loving my work. Alas, I can't use it. So back to the drawing board. Except this time instead of allowing the ideas to just come to me I'm forcing it a bit more. It's a challenge th0ugh and challenges are good for forcing growth. Bird's nest and birds lamp design out- butterfly lamp in. I can still use some of my same techniques and the lamp base but the look had to be completely different.


I thought it might be fun to actually wrap wire around the shade this time and use some paper instead of the fabric. But the look just isn't right. I don't hate it-(I actually like it a lot) but it doesn't have the polished look of the first lamp. So Jeremy to the rescue! We stood in front of the lamp and just started to brainstorm together and I think the look on this next lamp is going to be a little closer to my birds nest lamp and have the same polished look but is still different. I'm excited to create it. The sketchbook page at the top of this post has a little sketch I did for myself to remember what I planned. And I did like the wire and paper butterfly shade and I think I'll work a little more with it and maybe add some stitching. But it's going to have to wait for me to get this other lamp done and ready to be shipped. Tomorrow being the weekend I'd like to think I'll have some time to do this but we've got a ton of stuff going on and I don't know when I'll have the time. But the more I get done the less stressed I'll feel about the whole deadline. I guess the solution is to stop blogging and go work! But I did want to share some of the work I've been doing this week with you. When I've finished the next incarnation of the butterfly lamp I'll post it and you can all let me know what YOU think about the two. Thanks!