All right, watch out, I am going to get a little crafty on you here. Just know I am doing it as a hardworking public servant for the fine folks of the city of Chicago. You see, I have been trying to come up with some sort of craft for the kids who attend my November Lurie Garden "seeds" workshop. I was given the challenge of coming up with something that connects the actual seeds/seed heads in the garden rather than just some random store-bought seeds. I was coming up quite blank and then I remembered an art project I'd seen in a magazine last winter, it was making a very simple piece of art by mounting a dried flower or seed head on card stock and framing it. So when Ted and I were on an IKEA run a few weeks back, I checked out these all wooden shadow boxes they have but they were too deep, I think the flower would sort of get lost in the depth, and they were $3 each. Not expensive but not cheap either if you have 25 kids. But I wasn't ready to give up.
I did know that my friends over at Binth had a stash of their beautiful silk-screened cards that they were not using for a variety of reasons (discontinued, color not quite right on a certain run, etc.) and they were smart enough not to just chuck them in the trash or even in the recycling. If I could score some of that gorgeous card stock . . . that would be perfect for mounting the seeds. So I asked Linnea over at Binth and she said, "Come on over!" Sometime between setting up the time to pick up the cards I realized that a simple small cardboard gift box (think bracelet or necklace size) would be the perfect frame or box for the mounted seeds. So I checked out the options and found a variety of sizes over at XpedX, a wholesale paper store that also sells to mere individuals like myself.
I made it over to Binth last week and Linnea pulled out two boxes filled to the gills with amazing cards. And then she asked the understandable question, "So Bonnie, what exactly do you think you'll do with these?" And so I told her my idea, of mounting them on the card stock and then putting that in a small box to make a shadow box or frame of sorts. "I just need to go buy some little boxes and then I will see how it goes." Linnea's eyes lit up. "Little boxes? Do you need little boxes?" And then she walked away and came back with a very large cardboard box filled with, you guessed it, little cardboard boxes. "We're not using these anymore and we don't know what to do with them. But we didn't want to just get rid of them." I almost kissed her, I was that close. I did sort of squeal. Talk about a win-win, eh? And for all this wonderful paper product bounty, all Linnea asked is that I send her a shot of some of the final products. So we loaded up the boxes in the beater Volvo and I schlepped them to work and they sat there for about a week until finally, on Wednesday I decided to bring some of the supplies home and give it a go. And so here we go.
I had a small stash of seed heads and acorns that I had collected from the Lurie Garden.
I had my Binth boxes in really dreamy pale blue and yummy chocolate brown.
I had my stack of Binth cards in all sorts of colors and patterns.
And I had my glue. Because you can't get crafty without glue, "Tacky Glue" no less.
I picked a tri-fold card with a botanical and bunny motif going on and I tore one-third of the card off. I glued it into the bottom portion of the box.
(Oh and just so you know, I really was doing this all on our funny striped carpet in the sun room. I am sure it would be more appropriate to be doing it at a table with a flat clean surface and all that, but sitting on the floor of the sunny sun room seemed like a really fine place to be.)
I then picked out the peony seed cluster, which I have been rather enamored with ever since scoring it, and glued it onto the paper. And here we have it.
I think it came out pretty nicely. I still need to play around a bit with using other art materials (like paint or markers) and maybe even doing art on top of the Binth graphics or just simply painting the bottom part of the box. but I think this project has legs. And I also like how it is gender-neutral, there are lots of strong non-girly graphics in the Binth paper stash (heck, the " Offspring" line has cool aliens and monsters that Jarek drew) and the box colors are perfect. So lots of big love and thanks to the fine folks over at Binth! They made my job easier, saved me money and running around and most important of all, made my job a little more creative and satisfying. Plus, I think the kids are gonna dig this project.
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