HOW to MAKE APPALACHIAN ART from RECYCLED ODDS and ENDS

First Step: Decisions of background mounting.
Decide what you will use for a backing or mounting piece; I use burlap, aluminum foil, cardboard, wood, plastic, cloth, and picture frame glass; just about anything that will hold the items to make your artwork. I recycle old glass window frames, picture frames, boards, table cloths, curtains, whatever I have at the moment that catches my fancy. I either use home made paste with flour and water, a glue gun if you have it, school glue, rubber cement, caulking if I can find some that someone threw out a tube that still has some in it. If you loose the tip; dont worry, just stick a nail or screw in the end to hold the goopy stuff in and it wont dry out.

Second Step: Recycle the backdrop or item you will mount your artwork onto. Anything and any size will do. Just make sure its cleaned off and take out or pound down nails, remove glass shards; anyway make it safe for you to work on so no one gets hurt. I use anything and everything, wood, boards, glass or whatever you have chosen to mount recycled items on to make your artwork. First wipe it clean with soap and water, remove any broken glass carefully, and make sure you have a size of a surface that is attached to something solid that you will use as a frame. I use old barn wood nailed to old picture frames, cardboard glued as backing to glass or wood, cloth taped to cardboard. aluminum foil pasted to a frame. Anything will do as long as it is sturdy enough to attach odds and ends to permanently. The size of backing and mounting will determine how big or small you want your recycled artwork to be.based on the amount of space inside the framing on your mounting. I have used clothespins, paperclips,popsicle sticks, old twigs, rope,
regular frames to mount so that I have an area to create artwork on. Sometimes I do not frame them with anything; I just put a picture hanger on the back and its just fine without any type of recycled item frame. Other times after I finish a piece of artwork I change my mind and put shoestrings, leather, shells, rice, beans, or pencils around the outside of the mounting for the frame. It's whatever makes you happy as you create and its free stuff.Don't fret none over it because it will come to ya just how ya want it to be and its yours so used what ya got or what you can find so you dont have to spent any money. Old bottle caps, old coffee stirs, bread ties, old belts, just any old thing will do.

Third Step: Look around your yard, house, your sidewalks, your trash, all those odds and ends you have been a saving for a rainy day project. Things like rice, beans, dried corn, bits of dried flowers, pull ya some grass out of your yard; any non poisonous weeds, dead flowers, trash that is not food, old rags and newspaper, old brown and plastic bags, twigs, tamales, crayons, toothpicks, old nylons, all those material scraps that you just hate to throw aways and can not for the life of ya figure out what to do with them. Well, rinse them off with antibacterial hot soap and water; they may need to soak a bit to be cleaner and safe. Let them dry a while. I gather up a bunce of odds and ends and put them in a picnic basket or an old shoe box. But sometimes I use shoeboxes for 3 dimensional shadow boxes, so find ya something to put all your odds and ends together and mix them up; dont worry about them.

Fourth Step: Find you a flat surface; a table, the porch, the floor; somewhere that you can lay your backdrop mounting on and it will be safe and sturdy. Sometimes I use the top of my dryer, or an end table or a TV tray, or just my kitchen counter that is out of the way and no one will disturb it; not even my cats or grandchildren so that I can create my artwork and it wont get disturbed.

Fifth Step: Think creatively about what kind of picture you want to design. what you can use from your odds and ends bag or box. I use all sorts of things to recycle like the cloth from an old shirt, wet paper bags, sometimes, old burlap I have found or a soiled table cloth; just anything that is the color and texture you want to use to mount onto your backing with glue or tacks or nails. Yesterday I put an old slip with lace as my background, Last month I sold an Appalachian Art piece that was backed with aluminum foil and I made pictures out of dried beans, corn, peas with little twigs and weeds for leaves and sprayed it with hair spray to make it shine and the frame was made with old broken recylced pencils and the picture hanger was two little tacks with a piece of shoelace ties between them.

Last Step: Just make whatever kind of scene you can recall that you love, Maybe a sceme someone you know likes, or a farm or city you saw from the highway on vacation. I made a mountain art piece about six months ago that I decided to keep. I used an out pressed board shelf that broke out of an old bookcase that was lying in the large trash pickup over by the grocery store. I rubbed coffee grounds and wet teabags on it to give it some life of colour. Then I took some caulking that a contractor left in a can over by my fence. I smeared the caulking with food coloring to make it reddish brown and put little scrappings of crayons in it. and pressed in down on that board and let it dry. Then I sprayed some clear caulk down the side and across the bottom to look like a waterfall and a creek. I then glued little dried peas up and down the clear caulk and stuck some weeds here and there to make the mountain trail scene. Then I put some red rouge and orange lip gross over the sky and sprayed it with hair spray to shine. When it dried I then put a few twigs on it with hot glue and some green material cut like leaves. I made the birds out of flex straws and bag ties. It turned out real nice.RELAX; YOU CAN CHANGE ODDS AND ENDS AROUND BEFORE YOU ATTACH THEM. ENJOY, CREATE, AND HAVE FUN!!YOU WILL DO JUST FINE:) Send me a message or email if you have any questions or need any suggestive help to complete your one of a kind piece of creative artwork.