Strange Ways to Make Art Prints with Recycled Material

You don't need lots of expensive printing equipment or supplies to make creative and funky prints. If you never seem to find artwork for your own home that fits your taste and your budget, you can always make your own using recycled material. Nobody will know you used recycled objects to create the shapes and designs. Repeat images and colors in a series of three to five prints, frame them and you instantly have original artwork for your kitchen or family room.

Styrofoam Trays for Carving

Use the Styrofoam trays from the produce section of the grocery store, like the ones used for fresh pea pods. Rinse and dry them before using. Skip using the meat trays, which should always be rinsed and either thrown out or recycled.

1. Draw a shape on the tray, of a fruit,vegetable, or a simple geometric shape.
2. Use regular scissors or a craft knife to cut out the shape.
3. Draw details onto the shape using chalk, to practice the design before committing to it.
4. Press a ball point pen into the design to create indented lines.
5. Apply paint to the brayer and press the stamp onto paper.
6. Also try pressing the paper onto the stamp and running clean brayer over it.

Margarine Cover Print

1. Use a marker to draw an an image on a margarine cover. You can use a large one or a small one, or both.
2. With a craft knife, cut out parts of the image to make a stencil. Decide which parts to keep and which parts to cut out. The parts that you cut will be the areas where the ink goes.
3. Glue a fabric scrap around the inside edges of the cover. Make sure the fabric is thin, like a cotton or use a cheese cloth or flour sack,, place mat or napkin from the local dollar store.
4. Use a folded piece of cardboard to rub ink or thinned temper paint across the plastic stencil. The ink will be pushed through the plastic cut outs, through the fabric to create a print.

Quilt Print

1. Divide a piece of paper into squares, using a ruler and pencil. You can make four squares or 12, or any number you want.
2. Each square will contain a different pattern, created by making a rubbed texture.
3. Place found objects - from pennies to string, from leaves to any somewhat flat items you can pull out of the recycling bin - under the paper.
4. Rub a peeled crayon on the area of paper covering the object. For a more artistic effect, use charcoal.