Craft Your Own Art with Recycled Windows and Leftover Wallpaper

I have jokingly stated many times that I have enough craft supplies to open a craft supply store. While that statement could be considered true, it would also have to take into consideration what I have as supplies. I collect everything! Yes, I have many items that are new, but living in a small town, with no craft store for miles, has made me, uhm, well...creative. I scour weekend yard sales, enjoy lifting my bidding number at auctions, and am a frequent shopper at thrift stores. I have also been known to do a little dumpster diving and curbside shopping. Then there are my friends, family and friends of my friends and family that save me their trash, cast offs and old craft supplies. It's kind of like the old "Life" cereal commercial with Mikey. "I don't want it. Hey, let's give it to Cyndee."

I have dozens of chairs, shutters and windows stacked in a barn, plastic bins, lockers and trunks full of fabric in a camper and the house, drawers and drawers full of ribbon and ...well, you get the idea. I believe this menagerie of supplies is what makes my crafting unique, not to mention the fact that I could not afford to do it any other way. 'One man's trash is another man's treasure.'

My most recent trash to treasure endeavor has been making hanging art with old windows. This project also makes use of my growing stash of wallpaper borders. I have accumulated many rolls of beautiful, quirky and whimsical wallpaper borders for pennies, because I (ahem) could see the potential. At least that is what I tell my husband. Hey, there are worst addictions (wink).

To make this wonderful masterpiece, you will need:

Old window
Drill with small bit
Paint for the base (I used white house paint)
Acrylic paint for the top coat
Crackle medium
Paint brush
Wallpaper border
Mod Podge
Scissors
Ruler
Pencil
Paint pen
Wood skewer
Old baling wire
Wire cutters
1/2 inch dowel or equivalent (to curl the wire around)

1. Lay your window face up. Find the center of the frame at the top of the window. Measure on either side two inches and mark. Drill through the marks. These holes will be for the hanging wire.

2. Base coat the entire front side of the window, including the frame and sides. Allow the paint to dry. Apply crackle medium over the base coat and allow it to dry to a tacky texture. Paint your chosen topcoat over the crackle finish. The topcoat will begin to crackle immediately. Do not repeatedly stroke over your paint, as the crackle reaction happens quickly and may cause smudging. Allow the paint to dry.

3. Measure the width of each pane along the bottom window area. Measure each pane separately, old windows rarely have exact measurements. Cut from left to right, a portion of wallpaper border for each window pane measurement. Dip the cut wallpaper into warm water for one minute. Remove and shake the excess water off. Position the borders inside the panes. Smooth the paper to remove the bubbles and allow to dry. If bubbles remain, poke them with a straight pin and press them down.

4. Dry brush the outer frame of the window using the base coat paint. Print an appropriate or witty saying in the window spaces above the border, using a paint pen to match the color of your base coat. Dip the blunt end of a wood skewer into the base coat paint and dot the ends and intersections of each letter. Allow the lettering paint to dry. Apply Mod Podge over the wallpaper border and the entire window front, including the frame and sides.

5. Cut an 18 inch length of rusty baling wire. Insert an end in each of the drilled holes on the back of the window. Pull the ends through with 5 inches sticking out the front on each side. Bend the excess loop in the back up for hanging. Use a 1/2 inch dowel to curl the 5 inch ends, tightly, against the frame of the window.

Trash to treasure, recycling, upcycling, junk crafting...call it what you want, but crafting something beautiful, functional, or useful out of things that started out life as something else is not only economical, it's pretty cool.