HAVE A COKE

I was particularly interested in the use of discarded coke cans, bottles and bottle tops, as so many of these items are thrown away each day! I managed to find some wonderful pieces.

Clifton Suspension Bridge out of coke cans by Stuart Murdoch

This dress is fantastic, I only wish I knew the name of the artist.

Big Ben out of coke cans by Robert Bradford

Big Ben out of coke cans by Robert Bradford

Coke Bottle Tops Fish Sculptures by John T. Unger

RECYCLING FACT:

An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!

THINK BEFORE YOU THROW

A typical family consumes 26 gallons of bottled water, 182 gallons of canned drinks, 104 gallons of milk a year!

We can recycle these items (as we should), but if we think about it we could also make things out of them.

Before you throw away just think!

Have a look here at these people that have put these containers to good creative use.

I also am a HUGE fan of Elbow Grease Designs (two images above). Everything on her site has been designed & hand sewn in the San Francisco Bay Area from discarded vinyl signs and banners. Originally printed for local trade shows, conventions, municipal or private advertising, these ENORMOUS banners would otherwise end up in the landfill. Jenny Say's "It is our goal to make beautiful and practical items out of what has been discarded".

Harriete Estel Berman Makes wonderful teacups, pots, jewellery, sculptues all out used food packaging. The cups above were constructed from recycled tin cans.

I love the look of this Fishing tackle by Tedd McDonanah. I actually think they would also make great keyrings!

I even love the above artwork created by Children out of food packaging.

ALEXANDER KORZER-ROBINSON

I first saw Alexander Korzer-Robinson's work at the RWA, Bristol at the 'Celebration of Paper' exhibition and really loved what he had done.

Alexander Korzer-Robinson is an artist from Berlin now living in Bristol. He draws from a background in psychology. “my 
art practice focuses on the notion of the inner landscape. Using generally discarded 
materials, I make objects as an invitation to the viewer to engage her/his own inner life in 
order to assign meaning to the artwork”.

The cut book art has been made by working through the books, page by page, cutting around 
some of the illustrations while removing others. The images seen in the finished work, are 
left standing in the place where they would appear in the complete book. As a final step the 
book is sealed around the cut, and can no longer be opened.

Taken on my iphone

Tower Box

If you scroll down the page a couple of entries you'll see some Recycle package designs submitted by a couple of readers. Well, check these out:





WOW!

This design was done by Chris, who made the previous box. Here's what he had to say:

"i saw that you have placed photos of my box i made from christmas-time, and i'm emailing to say thanks.

BUT, you should know that shortly after talking with you last, i loaned my box to my sister. long story short: box got stolen.

SO, i've been spending these past months rebuilding it all over again: cutting sleeves, printing cd labels [this time, however, i used the cd labels you provided], and so forth. i pretty much scrapped my whole box design, even the book, on this second build.

the first box was a real pain in the ass to make, so started looking for alternatives. i have become somewhat of an origami nut, and i came across a particular design that i thought was perfect for these new order singles. i'm sending you photos of my new box design.

it is called a tower box. there is a cap, a base, and a middle section. the best part of this design is that there can be as many middle sections as i want. the scale of the shell is at the right height to get 10 sleeves easily in. this box took 25 sheets of 7.5" paper, all folded, no glue or tape. the only cutting i did was cutting down some cardstock to 7.5", which when folded, gave me a 5" shell, perfect for the sleeves. i used left over cardstock from the first build for the new design [cause that's all i had at the time], but if i find some really cool paper, i'll probably make another. surprisingly, the box is incredibly stable - before making this one, i made a demo version out of cheapo printer paper, and even that was more than sturdy to support these selves. all in all, it took me a few hours to make it [if i had a paper cutter, it would've been maybe an hour].

anyhoo, thanks for everything.

chris"

You can download PDF instructions for this design here.

I'm really amazed by the response this project has gotten, and I'd like to see more photos from those of you who've assembled your own set. You can e-mail them to 50poundnote at gmail dot com.

SOCK MONKEY

When is a sock not a sock? When it's a Monkey!

Recycling ideas for your old (and hopefully clean) socks.

image above taken from Sock Money Dreams.

I have been fancinated by this craze for Sock Monkeys and have recently been sent sock monkey related items from various people (living all over the world). The victorians were making sock monkeys when the craze for imitation stuffed animals swept from Europe into North America & met the burgeoning Arts & Craft Movement.

image above taken from Sock Money Dreams.

Images from Gingerdead & Friends.

Image above taken from Monkey a Day.

How to make a Sock Monkey

Sock Monkey Wine Bottle Cover. Photo taken by my niece Lucie a store in Los Angeles, USA.

I just love these 'Spock Monkeys' from Craziest Gadgets

And last, but not least... A Hindu Goddess Sock Monkey!

Image taken from Visual Streak

HOW TO MAKE A SOCK MONKEY

For those of you who fancy a go...

THE SKETCHBOOK PROJECT

"It's Like a Concert tour but with sketchbooks"

The lovely Gabrielle sent me this Sketchbook Project link the other day and it looks very interesting.

Each artist is sent the same blank Moleskine Cahier sketchbook. We've only got two rules: first, the book must be used in some way - no sending us back an empty book or a completely different book! Second, the sketchbook must stay within its original dimensions (because we don't want to have to provide an extra suitcase just for your book while we're touring the country).

Each book will be given a barcode so we can easily catalog it into The Brooklyn Art Library system. Once we catalog it, artists will be able to track where on the tour their book is viewed and how many times someone pulled it from the shelf - we want to make sure you can stay connected with your sketchbook! For more info click HERE.

For more information from the Art-House Co-op click HERE.

My New Plastic Bag Crochet Blog

I started a new blog about my plastic bag crochet endeavors.
From now on, all new posts will be here:
BagsBeGone.com

ART FROM A NEW WORLD

I visited the Bristol Museum the other day to see their

'Art from the New World' exhibition.

I was interested in this artwork by Mike Stilkey painted onto books.

Here is what Mike says about his painting onto books:

"I hate drawing on anything that is white, like a piece of drawing paper or a canvas. It gives me anxiety because I feel like I’m going to ruin it. I became attracted to drawing on old or weathered paper because it’s not white. About five or six years ago, I made a book titled “One Hundred Portraits” which featured one hundred drawings I’d done on old book pages. Then I started painting on the book covers and all over the books, and eventually began stacking the books on each other and painting the spines. This allowed me to make bigger pieces."

30 years...

Rest in peace, Ian.

I wonder what you'd think of your band. Would you love New Order's music? Would you marvel at the technology and realize it's OK to let your troubles go for a while and lose yourself on the dancefloor? Would the 53-year old you have moved to America, gained 50 pounds, and grown a big beard? Would you have retreated from the public eye in 1981 and be running a small bookshop in Holland? Would you be the person Bono became because your band was bigger than U2?

WHAT KATIE DID NEXT

Just came across What Katie did next blog and I love her use of old postage stamps she found in the jumble sale. These old postage stamp badges are lovely!

Assembly

I promise the last Joy Division single is coming. To be quite honest, both myself and Mr. Analog Loyalist are suffering a little burnout. While the work we're doing is both rewarding and necessary, spending so much time on one project/band has dampened my enthusiasm. I haven't even assembled my own CDs of the New Order singles yet, which brings me to today's entry.

My OCD doesn't like interrupting the sequence of singles, but I had to share these. A couple of readers have sent photos of their finished singles sets:




Fedge is storing his in mini poly sleeves just like LPs.


















Chris took this several steps further and I'm just really impressed. The fluorescent green and orange of the box are the colors of the inner sleeves for Round & Round/Round & Remix. Alongside the artwork for each single the book uses stock photos similar to the artwork used for Republic and it's singles. Bizarre Love Triangle and Touched By The Hand Of God have been tweaked to be gatefold sleeves like the their 7" and CD singles respectively, and he used a unifying titling/color scheme across the CDs instead of the labels I made, which are kinda haphazard since they're based on the labels from the vinyl singles.

What I'd always envisioned in my head was using a prefab plastic CD flip file to store the singles (plastic=recycle). I was going to print and mount Saville's original Recycle "waste painting" to the top, and craft a booklet to go inside, but I'd like to open this up to all of you. Have you put together your own set yet? Do you have any ideas for housing the package? Please share your ideas and photos with us.