more "green" crafting at the cottage

Last week we did some crafting at the cottage while we were on holidays. It was fun to just pull out my scrapbooking supplies and let the girls do what they want. Robyn and her cousin Amanda were keen to try out some collages after I showed them some amazing collage ideas in the current issue of  Somerset Studio The Art of Paper and Mixed-Media magazine.  

I let the girls go through my stash of papers, old books and scrapbooking supplies on their own and only offered helped if they asked me. I really wanted them to come up with their own ideas and not to worry about what was right or wrong or what anyone else thought looked "good".  I think that they had a good time and they worked on their projects on and off for two days. 

On the second day, Robyn was happy that I pulled out some of my special scrapbooking supplies for them to use if they wanted. I keep a bunch of my favourite scrapbooking supplies in a spice rack that I upcycled a couple of years ago ... and I don't share these supplies with the kids very often. 

  

I bought this spice rack at Costco at least 10 years ago. It wasn't your ordinary spice rack - it came with 16  spice jars, can and bottle openers, measuring spoons and a bunch of other kitchen tools ... and the rack spins! Once the spices were gone and I grew tired of seeing the rack on the overcrowded kitchen counter I knew that I needed to find a new use for the spice rack and give it a "makeover" ... so I turned it into a "scrapbooking supply organizer".

I used bright coloured scrapbooking papers to decorate most of the wood on the rack. The hooks that originally held kitchen tools were perfect for hanging paper scissors and packages of two-sided tape.

I cleaned out the spice jars and decorated the tops with scrap pieces of cork and flowers that I made out of vintage silk flower petals and buttons. I was originally going to make up labels to decorate the tops but I knew that I would be constantly re-labelling the containers over the years and it was easy to see what was in each jar from the side. The jars are filled with rhinestones, buttons, brads and miscellanous scrapbooking elements that I like to use for cardmaking, scrapbooking, collages, etc. 

The top of the spice rack had a hole in the middle to hold wooden spoons ... I used a small clay pot to fill the hole and store a few spools of my favourite ribbons.

 Haley was inspired by the girls as they were collaging and decided to do a little "upcycling" of her own. She had a white chair in her bedroom that I picked up at a garage sale a few years ago ... she didn't like the shiny white paint on it and thought that it would look better painted in a flat sky blue. After painting the chair, she cut words and phrases out of a couple of the books that I use for collages and covered the seat in random pieces of paper ...

it turned out pretty cool and Haley is so proud that she came up with the idea all by herself!