International Art and Soul Challenge 2

Our theme this fortnight is Recycle. Other than that, no restrictions, although it'd be better if it's obvious what you've recycled!

I do a lot of recycling, but normally just take a container and use it, not bothering to decorate or anything. I've got an IPad box that was being thrown out at work that holds my blending sponges, for example. Very useful, but not really attractive. So, for this challenge, I had to put in some effort.

So, I took a coffee tin like that one, and wondered how on earth I could cover it. I don't do a lot of that sort of thing, so I had to try something a little different. In the end, I decided to try using embossing paste. I've had some jars of that for, probably 15 years, and have never really had much success with it. In fact, when I checked out the jar of metallic gold paste, it was rather too thick for this purpose. The copper was ok, and so I used it to cover the tin. When that was dry, I applied a Sheena Douglas masking stencil to the tin. I applied more paste through the stencil, and added glitter to this layer. The stencil wasn't big enough to cover the whole circumference, so there was still a smooth panel. This, I decorated with some die cut flowers, cut using dies from Crafter's Companion and Sue Wilson and completed the effect with some braiding. And that's about it! I'm not sure I'd do another one of these, because I'm not completely happy with the result, but it's definitely better than the original coffee tin, so I'll use it!

I hope you'll play along this fortnight!