Up Cycled Menagerie - DIY Faux Animal Taxidermy from Recyclables

Be sure to check out the contest at the end of this post, ending Friday the 20th.  Comment to Win your favorite of the three animals shown here in the post.  


Take a long hard look in your recycling bin.  It's crawling with creatures great and small.  Hopefully, not real ones, but fun future faux ones.  With a little imagination, and some easy DIY instructions, you can create a zoo of animals out of common recyclables.

Welcome to my latest craft DIY brought to you by my friends at Rosenberry Rooms Very Rosenberry Blog.

Common recyclables like laundry detergent bottles, toilet tissue rolls
yogurt cups, styrofoam meat packing trays and cardboard are great components
for your own faux taxidermy.

When I design kid's spaces, for my clients, I want them to be filled with personality and some of their child's own handy work.  Often, I'll lead them in a craft project to create something unique.  These friendly taxidermy mounts would be a great project for them and would make wonderful room decor.  They would also be fun school auction projects or a DIY craft for parties.  The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.  You can follow along to make your own deer, rhino or circus giraffe version or experiment with the items in your recycling bin to create your own.

Two folded sour cream container lids make perfect ears.

A whimsical circus giraffe can be crafted by creating a hat from a disposable
drinking cup, some chenille pipe cleaners and a few feathers.

By cutting the handle off of a bleach bottle and taping it to the spout
you have a fun filled rhino.

Getting started....

1)  Assemble your recyclables and decide upon the type of animal you want to create.  Remember, the materials can be cut, moved, folded and altered with tape, cardboard or things like bottle caps, straws and craft supplies.

2)  Using scissors or a blade knife, cut or trim your recyclables into the shapes and dimensions you need.  Also consider scoring and folding pieces to create new shapes. Always observe safety precautions when using tools.

3) Utilize masking tape and hot glue to assemble your creation.  Masking tape can be used to bridge voids, cover seams and close open ends.

Folding sour cream lids over and gluing them into a hole creates
ears perfect for a deer.  The handle of the bottle was covered with masking
tape.

With plastic spoons for tufts and folded tissue rolls for ears, the circus
giraffe takes shape.

The rhino's ears are corners off of a styrofoam meat packing
tray.  His horn is a cut and turned around handle from the bleach bottle.

4) Decide upon the type of mount you'd like to use.  Here I've provided three shapes to download.  You may have to adjust your printer settings to a size greater than 100% to create large ones.

 5)  Cut two copies of your mount out of cardboard.  Also cut enough inch or two inch strips to line the outside.  Pre-creasing or shaping the strips will make it easier to follow curves.

6) Using hot glue, attach the pre-creased shapes to follow the outside edge of your mount.  Let it cool.

7) Cut two triangles into your matching back piece.  Locate them towards the top.  These triangles will be the points in which you hang the piece from nails or screws.  Using hot glue, secure the back piece on.

8) Hot glue and/or tape your animal to the mount.

Paper Mache over your sculpture.

9)  Mix water, flour and a pinch of salt into a paste.  Dip scrap paper, newspaper or tissue into the paste and paper mache the outside of your animal shape.  The more layers you apply the stronger your piece will become.  Although the salt inhibits mold growth, you'll want to make sure your piece dries thoroughly before painting.

10)  Paint and decorate your piece.  Consider painting it in a solid fun color, decoupaging it with images and text or painting it like the original animal.

Your sculpture can be inspired by a jungle, farm, forest or sea.  There are unlimited animal combinations.  Or for something different you can consider making robots, friendly monsters or mythological creatures like unicorns and dragons.

Are there animals in your recycling bin?  You better find them before your trash service hauls away your craft supplies.  If they've already recycled your supplies, you can skip the craft and enter to win YOUR choice of the three pieces I created, the details are below.

Have fun!

Aaron

As a bonus for dropping by, my readers and those visiting from Rosenberry Room's Very Rosenberry blog can enter to win the featured menagerie animal mount of your choice.  One winner will be chosen to select either the deer, rhino or circus giraffe, as my gift.  Here's how to win....

Leave me a comment here letting me know how you follow me?  Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook or Email...that's it.  Of course you could chat longer if you'd like.  I'd love to hear from you.

To follow me by email:  Enter your email address in the "Keep up with my mayhem" email subscription box in the upper right corner. 

To follow by Pinterest:  Visit my Pinterest page and click "Follow".

To follow by Twitter:  Visit my Twitter page and click "Follow".

To follow by Facebook: Visit my Facebook page and click "like".

The winner will be selected on July 20th.  Open to continental US residents only.

Teen Bedroom $300.00 Makeover Challenge - Today's Creative Blog

A dear friend I worked with years ago turned creative blog high priestess asked for a favor and presented me with a challenge.  Could I take over her $300.00 gift card budget for a sponsored room makeover and transform her son's room?  And in 72 hours?

Tattered and loopy from a 14 day commercial project that whacked out my body clock with graveyards, swing shifts and too many hours in traffic, I must have been in YES man mode.  Why YES Kim, I'd love too.  Why YES, I'll scour your sponsor Lowe's store for ways to spend the moolah, create unique items and install in 72 hours.  YES, YES, YES.....

Kim's son Lucas' room was trapped in transition.  The explorer theme had yet to evolve to match his young teen soccer loving bravado.

All kidding aside, my friend Kim Demmon and I have reacquainted via our social media endeavors with hers being top notch and mine part of my jack of all trades learning curve.  Her love and labor Today's Creative Blog features an array of talented bloggers, creatives and puts the artistically challenged in touch with tools and technology to make their creative whims easier, better and smarter.

Our project at hand was to transform her son's room utilizing her blog sponsor Lowes $300.00 budget as part of a blogosphere challenge.  Top on Kim and her son's list were a desk, some storage and a fresh teen attitude.  He had existing bedding from Target and lot's of sports memorabilia, but that was about it.  Pretty much bare bones.  Part of her reluctance to further his room was the disconnect between the bedding and the wall color.  She felt they didn't work together.  I resolved the issue with an unexpected solution.  Can you spot the change in either the bedding or the wall color from the before and after picture?  It's a subtle change that made all the difference in the world.

The bedding was too vibrant, the colors on the verge of fluorescent.  The stark difference between the brilliant white, hunting vest orange and other colors fought with the neutral wall color.  My solution was to treat the bedding in a custom blend of Rit Dyes.  Adding an antiqued over-dye to the bedding enriched the colors, changed the white to cream and toned down the kid-like color palette, making it more mature for a teen.

Sticking to the $300.00 budget I devised a way to cut up and assemble hollow core bi-fold doors into a desk, a headboard, shelving and create a casing around one of those clever ClosetMaid storage cubbies.  Would you believe all of those items cost under $90.00?  The remainder of the budget was spend on paint, sundries, lighting and materials for the custom bulletin board and hexagon shelving, I designed for Lucas.

I had Kim and her husband paint the wall stripe, his existing dresser and name cut-out with a spicy orange.  

Given the room's size of 9.5 feet by 11 feet, the dimensions for the desk and cubby worked out great.  Just enough room for his laptop and effective storage.  I crafted the hexagon shelves out of a new pre-cut lumber Lowe's has, it's a super high quality plywood trim with a birch veneer.  I left the edges unpainted to showcase the pattern of the laminated ply.

I took creative liberty to work in one of soccer pieces from my line of children's art.  The Soccer 100 Yards piece is available nationwide through retailers the stock Oopsy Daisy Fine art or online via my website or online retailers.

I enjoyed designing and creating the memo board.  As a matter of fact, I'll provide a D.I.Y on how to make your own turf board in a future post.  I had Kim, with her technological craftiness cut out a vinyl #14 (her son's player number) with her Silhouette Cameo cutting system.  It was a great way to personalize the desk chair.

All in all, I think for $300.00 and within 72 hours we gave Lucas exactly what he needed- a teen room with attitude, a desk and much needed storage.  If you'd like to dive into the details closer, here's a outline for you.

If this makeover's inspiration isn't enough to talk you into making over your child's room, relax I can help.  That's what I do, I create children's rooms.  Visit my site for details and give me a call for a free in-home estimate or to discuss e-consult recommendation.

Men Scan Too - Flip-Pal Review and DIY Week 3

A retro style Believe sign created using the stripes
from a painted cabinet and a scan of a venetian plaster wall.

I'm two weeks into my blog hop experiment with the Flip-Pal© mobile scanner.  Last week I challenged it by taking it outdoors to scan garage siding and old fence boards to create a "reclaimed wood" look reindeer and frame  http://embellishmentskids.blogspot.com/2011/12/men-scan-2-blog-hop-flip-pal-review-and.html.  The scanner runs on batteries and offers the option to remove the lid so you can direct scan any flat object. So, I thought I'd scan a few unusual things in the studio and use the images to create a vintage look Believe sign so Santa knows the Christensen family is ready and waiting.

Who would ever think that this funky painted cabinet's
stripes would come in handy for a craft project?

Being portable, you can hold the scanner to any surface no matter whether it's horizontal or vertical.  I decided to scan my black and gray venetian plaster wall and an old funky cabinet I have.  The plaster would be for Santa's black outline and fill, while the stripes from the cabinet would serve as the background for ol' Saint Nick.  There would be no way to scan a wall or a piece of furniture using a regular scanner, so the Flip-Pal performed the unusual task.

I held the Flip-Pal© against the wall and scanned away. 

A single scan from the Flip-Pal© had to be stitched together with
multiple scans to create the larger version below.

The stitching software is included with the Flip-Pal©.  You simply highlight the files
to stitch and the software does the rest.  It will automatically save
the new stitched version for you.

In order to replicate the cabinet stripes I had to make multiple scans, overlapping each one in order for the stitching software to weld them together.

Rather than trying to break the spine of my vintage clip art book
and force it into a regular scanner, I just dropped the Flip-Pal©
onto the page and scanned away.

Once I had the stitched stripes, captured the Santa image and the fill texture, I used my photo editing software to manipulate them all into the fun Believe image.  I printed the image onto textured paper, spray mounted it to a piece of MDF, sanded the edges back and drilled holes for the tinsel ribbon.  Once it was completely dry I gave it a light coat of decoupage medium to act as a sealer.

My cabinet stripes and venetian plaster walls are terrific
textures and patterns for this handmade Believe sign.
PRINT AND SHARE DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE AT THE END OF THIS POST.

 The lil' mobile scanner allowed me to scan a wall and a piece of furniture which is pretty cool and very effortless.  The only issue I had with the scanning was the location of the "scan" button.  Although it's conveniently located where your fingers can reach it, it's easily bumped resulting in an unwanted scan.   But, it's not a big deal compared to the joy of scanning every vertical surface because you can!

Be sure to check in with my fellow Blog Hoppers,  the talented Suede Baum - Fashion designer and TV personality from the Project Runway, Ken Oliver - The Accidental Crafter, Martin Amado - Interior designer and HGTV design host, and Mark Montano - Author of The Big Ass Book of Crafts, to see what they've come up with for this weeks hop.

I hope you Believe and enjoyed my little project for old Santa.

FOR A FREE DOWNLOAD OF THIS IMAGE:
(It's a perk, as a thank you, for those who engage and follow in social media with me  Reach out to me and I'll send you a PDF link.

Facebook Fans:  https://www.facebook.com/Embellishments  Go to my page, click the message button and message me "Believe" and I'll reply with a link.

Twitter Followers: https://twitter.com/AChristensenArt  Private message me and I'll send the link over to you.

Pinterest Followers:  http://www.pinterest.com/AaronEmbellish  Pin the image above to a board and tag me @AaronEmbellish . I'll comment with a link.

Instagram Followers:  http://instagram.com/aaronchristensenart Tag me in a photo @aaronchristensen art.  I'll @ back at you with a hyperlink to cut and paste into your browser.

Subscribers on the Blog:  Email me Aaron(at)EmbellishmentsKids.com, I'll reply with a link.

Are you old school and shy away from all this social media stuff?  Leave me a comment below and email me Aaron(at)EmbellishmentsKids.com, I'll take care of you.


Thanks so much, enjoy!

-Aaron

P.S.
I'm excited to be able to offer you a coupon code for a discount on the Flip-Pal© if this little charmer is on your holiday shopping list.  Coupon codes are valid on theirwebsite until December 22, 2011.
To receive $20 off the purchase of a Flip-Pal™ mobile scanner with Creative Suite Craft Edition DVD use coupon codeMS2CS11.

To receive $15 off the purchase of a Flip-Pal™ mobile scanner use coupon code MS2FP11.

Join my fellow Flip Pal bloggers of Men Scan 2

Suede Baum - http://suedesays.com/blog    

Ken Oliver - http://kensworldinprogress.blogspot.com/

Martin Amado - http://www.martinamado.com/

Mark Montano - http://markmontanoblogs.blogspot.com/

Now, much like a superpower, with great power comes great responsibility.  I choose to be a Man Scanner of virtue, only scanning, non-copyrighted or approved source materials.  It would be very easy to take the power of the scanner to the dark-side and be an arch villain of copyright.  As an artist that has been the victim of copyright theft I therefore ask that you please do the right thing and respect copyrighted works. 
In full disclosure, I was provided a complimentary Flip-Pal© Mobile Scanner to use and review.  Even though I've received this item for free, I will give you my honest opinion about it regardless, that's how I roll.  I'd encourage you to explore the product's capabilities and features on your own to form your own opinion.  I've been invited to participate in their affiliate program.  By clicking through the links I've provided and making a purchase I may receive a small commission.  Monies raised by affiliate programs are used to fund postage and offset costs related to our free give-a-ways and contests.

Men Scan Too! - A Men's Crafty Blog Hop

When author, TV personality and designer Kathy Peterson sent me an email saying she needs a man, I almost clicked the spam button.  Sure, she and I are Facebook banterers keeping each other's spirits high with humor and accolades, but this proclamation had me perplexed.  In reading further, that was just the tip of the iceberg, she needed five men.  Now, before I lead you on too far and tarnish the respectable and admirable reputation of the talented KP, let me share with you her exciting idea.

In association with Flip-Pal ©, Kathy was assembling her team of Men, five men who create.  Her invitation was for us to test drive the mobile scanner, that was awarded the Craft and Hobby Associations Innovation award in 2010.
  

The Flip-Pal© Mobile Scanner features battery operated portability and a removable front cover for on-the-go scanning.

To run it through it's paces with a different breed of animal, joining me are the talented Suede Baum - Fashion designer and TV personality from the Project Runway, Ken Oliver - The Accidental Crafter, Martin Amado - Interior designer and HGTV design host, and Mark Montano - Author of The Big Ass Book of Crafts.

While my resume of notoriety is dwarfed by these high profile men of design, Kathy knows that my magical world of Embellishments can put any product through a warfare of art and craft.  I'll put it to the test and share with you how it does keeping up with kid's design, prop making and the overall theme overload we see here in the studio.  I unwrapped mine today and have just begun to play with it.

Every Thursday during December, the guys and I will be updating our blogs with our Flip-Pal© experiences and sharing our creations.  To keep with the "man" theme, I wonder if we all scan our manly abs, could we start a Men of Flip-Pal calendar?  I better scan and crunch, scan and crunch
Crunch...1,2,3...Crunch 4,5,6... whew!  Could I please have a stunt double, or an ab stand in?

Here are links to my cohorts.
Happy Hopping!
-Aaron

Suede Baum - http://suedesays.com/blog    
Ken Oliver - http://kensworldinprogress.blogspot.com/
Martin Amado - http://www.martinamado.com/
Mark Montano - http://markmontanoblogs.blogspot.com/


In full disclosure, I was provided a complimentary Flip-Pal© Mobile Scanner to use and review.  Even though I've received this item for free, I will give you my honest opinion about it regardless, that's how I roll.  I'd encourage you to explore the product's capabilities and features on your own to form your own opinion.

From Pale to Precious - A Girl's Bedroom Makeover for Two

Confection colors and our studio created crowns add whimsy
in the made-over shared bedroom.

When inspiration hits, I like to grab a sheet of blank paper and jot down ideas, scribble my thoughts in picture form and transform it into a brainstormed blueprint to elaborate on.   When I asked for submissions from my Facebook page fans for rooms that need makeovers, I was struck by this room and couldn't resist the proverbial blank slate's allure.

A floating door and overwhelming pale walls.

The good sized room was divided ineffectively.

Eclectic furniture of varied scale.

The homeowner, Tara said in her email to me, submitting her two daughter's shared bedroom, that they had purchased some chandeliers and their placement presented a problem.  While I would have gladly offered help in placing light fixtures, the room pictures cried out for more.

When discussing the rooms potential with her, I found out that there were three assorted sized crawl-space access doors within the room.  You can see them in the pictures, one floating on the wall in the corner, a second hidden behind the toybox and the third covered by the crib's side panel.  These three eyesore doors added intrigue and a level of difficulty to the project that had my mind racing for ideas.

Unlike our previous makeover project for Nick, which focused on handyman skills and built on site custom aspects to transform, I wanted to confine this room to crafts, paint and light budget solutions.  These type of solutions are easily adapted and may serve as inspiration to others.

So, after an interview of the girl's likes and dislikes and a survey of the rooms furniture, bedding and existing items, I embarked upon my ideas.  The girl's bedding which was from Ikea featured animals celebrating in merriment with musical instruments, juggling, riding bikes and carrying birthday cakes.  This was my launching point for creating a confection colored room that had a celebratory tone to it.

The bedding offered fun and inspiration.

While, I restricted my own participation to simple affordable ideas, I did ask Tara to sell her youngest daughter's outgrown crib and replace it with the exact Ikea bed her oldest sleeps in.  This would give us some continuity in the room and help expand upon black as an accent color.  Other than a few accessories, paint and craft items everything in the room was either reused, altered or edited.

2 gallons and 3 quarts transforms the room.

Considering the room was two square shapes overlapping, it presented itself as a candidate for some color carving, with wall of different confection flavors, as illustrated in my layout concept below.

Here are side by side room shots presenting the before and after photos.

Addressing the issues that we agreed the room had, I presented my solutions-

The Crawl-space doors-  The floating one would be disguised by painting the door trim and adding a ribbon board facade.  The only technical issue was guaranteeing the door and door knob functioned.  The other two doors would be primed and painted to match the walls.  Any pattern would continue right over the doors as if they weren't there.  This basically camouflages them.

Shared Space solutions-  Considering the room was shared by sisters two and half years apart, I decided to separate their sleeping areas into the two natural room halves.  Our custom studio crowns would personalize each half.

Function-  The dresser and dresser hutch combination dwarfed the wrought iron Ikea beds.  To de-emphasis the scale difference our crowns would hold draped tulle adding weight and scale to the beds.  The girl's needed lighting and side tables.  To stick with our light budget theme and the Ikea tradition started by the family, I sought out two lack tables and fabric shade light pendants.  While I enjoy Ikea's lack table simplicity, it wouldn't do for this project so I altered them by moving the legs back and adding a scallop trim.

Personality-  Adding color, pattern and some whimsical features transformed the plain room.  In the studio I created the ribbon boards, the bird sculptures and the bunting pennants to add dimension and a low cost but customized touch.

While money can be thrown into any project to purchase style and whimsy, I offer this room as a testament to sweat equity and creativity.  The rooms walls are works of tape, small rollers and a level.  The scalloped crown trim is easily created using a cardboard pattern that is traced and filled in.   Some details about the individual pieces are described here.

Post makeover, Tara offered " First of all, I can't believe that was how I allowed the room to look!  I had no idea, sense of direction and just didn't know how to organize the room and make it cute for the girls."  Commenting on her favorite feature, the dotted wall she said " I could look at that wall all day.  I'm really glad that it acts as a feature wall and it's the first thing you see as you walk in."  While the girls proclaim to her "They love their crowns!" adding, "They really define each of their spaces, which is important to them since they share the room and pretty much everything in it!"  "Working with Aaron was such a fun experience.  There were so many ideas and surprises." she said.

While makeover contests don't happen often, we are thankful and excited to offer them when we can.  Be sure to join our Facebook page, that's where all of our contests are announced.

Pennants add a sense of festivity.

Studio made birds sculpted from foam add whimsy.

Pom Poms and Ribbons help the room celebrate with color.

Ikea's lack table purchase on sale for $4.00 transformed by moving the
legs back and adding a hand wrought scallop trim.

  

Be Inspired Blog Hop - Aaron Christensen's visit to the Land of Seuss

Some of my artist friends and I have noticed an increasing amount of how-to's and knock off blogs that stray into the realm of copyright infringement, which is simply the stealing of others art. As an artist with art and artworks featured worldwide, this has me concerned and disappointed. So, to help the blogosphere out, and add a dose of originality, several of us (see permalinks below) are posting about how you can be inspired by another without stealing from them. Before you glean someone's art from google images, color copy it from a catalog, scan it with your scanner or take snippets of it to use in your art, please consider being an original. It's a great way to go and it will keep you out of hot water.

That being said, I'd like to introduce you to my art inspiration, he's Dr. Seuss. His 107th birthday was yesterday. I am a collector of vintage Dr. Seuss memorabilia and grew up with his books. To illustrate our point about being being inspired yet original, I'm sharing with you my faux taxidermy project. I've created this quip to get you into a Seuss frame of mind.

I made it my own with Seuss in my thoughts. A tribute to him, no stealing, no cops. Now look what I did, enjoy it you may. Now look what I did, be inspired this way. As you sit on your bumple, scratching your head, "what is it to be original, what is it I said?" It's a place in your heart, a place in mind, a place that all artists must honestly find. - A.C.

These are copyrighted characters and sculptures created by Dr. Seuss- Theodore Geisel. Property of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, all rights reserved. This image is being used to explain an editorial point and I claim no ownership of this photograph or it's contents.

Here in my studio we are lucky enough to have the materials and the know how to create magical things out of thin air. If I chose to, I could copy one of Dr. Seuss's character mounts, or to be really bad I could post a blog how-to and teach you all how to do it. But I'd never do that because it is morally wrong and frankly illegal. So to illustrate how he has inspired me as an artist, I'm in the process of creating my own wild character wall mount with Seuss-like silly characteristics, but it's 100% my own idea. She's something I dreamt up, created in sketch form and then sculpted into three dimensions.

She's a Bird Nesting Head Doe, a rare jungle treat.
She carries bird eggs till their up, up on their feet.

In her second stage of sanding, she's taking shape.
I'll need to finish her features, prime and paint her.

As she progresses, I'll post some new pictures here. I'd love to hear suggestions as to what her name should be. I have her new home picked out, it's just above my drawing table.

Here she is, long eyelashes, whiskers and all.

I hope my example illustrates the difference between being inspired, using that as motivation to create something of your own and the opposite, which is duplicating and infringing upon your inspiration. Remember, it's okay to be inspired by other artists, as long as you make your art your own. Be fresh, be original and be honest, you'll enjoy it!

Please stop by my artist friends blogs to see what they've come up with.

Brenda Pinnick ----- Shelly Kennedy / Drooz Studios

Phyllis Dobbs ----- Chris Chun

Joanne Sharpe ----- Sharyn Sowell

Vickie Lea ----- Monica Lee

Molly Smith ------ Jen Goode

Beth Parker ------ Jane Maday

Robin Pickens ----- Sue Zipkin