Patchwork quilts are a good example of “use what you have”.
Here are three golden rules to be an “Art Scrapper”, and an environmentally-aware artist. I know that artists do not always like rules, so you can also call these three guidelines, or philosophies, on turning old scraps into fine arts and crafts:
Scrapper Rule #1. Use What You Have. continue reading
Irene sitting in a tree making daisy pop top chains. 1977
In the seventies, we used to clean up our campgrounds by taking all the discarded soda pop top tabs we could find on the ground, and turning them into chains. We called this pop-top daisy chains (as shown in these historical pictures).
Irene at the Maker Fair.
My name is Irene and I love arts and crafts. As a child I loved to camp with my large family, make things from scraps, paint pictures and write stories.
Growing up in Albany, California, I saw the Emeryville mudflat sculptures almost every day from the freeway. These whimsical, wooden things mystified and inspired me. I thought about making one myself, but I was too little. In school, we often made things from scraps, like decorated crowns out of construction paper, papier-mâché puppets out of newspapers strips, and wooden baskets out of popsicle sticks. continue reading