I love chocolate. And I love my family. But when the two get together over the holidays, it's chocolate overload time. Chocolate in the stockings, chocolate decorating the gift packages, chocolate sprinkled among the baked treats.
I find it all hard to resist and only realize how much I've eaten when I awaken from a chocolate-induced stupor to find myself surrounded by candy wrappers. Uh-oh.
To ease my guilt, I save the pretty wrappers with the intention of making collage art out of them. There are many ways to do this, but I like this tutorial from mixed-media artist Beryl Taylor.
Mini Candy Wrapper Tags
By Beryl Taylor
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| Collage tag made with candy wrappers. |
I love to experiment with different kinds of paper in my art, from wallpaper to wrapping paper to fabric-paper I make myself. For a while now I've been using candy wrappers in my work. I love the shiny foil wrappers that are often imprinted with text. Some are laminated with cellophane printed with wonderful graphics. These add shine and another layer of texture to my pieces. But the best part is, I can now justify eating candy because it's "for my art." And that's a sweet deal.
Here's how to make a layered skinny tag made with candy wrappers.
Materials
- Candy wrappers (I used a cellophane-covered foil wrappers in two contrasting colors.)
- Craft felt
- Scissors or craft knife and mat
- Sewing machine and gold thread
- Small eyelet
- 4 small gold beads
- 1 long paper bead (or similar)
- Thin gold wire
- Decorative punch (I used a flower.)
- Metal craft foil
- Small gold brad
Directions
1. Cut 2 narrow strips (1" x 4") from candy wrapper paper.
2. Cut 1 piece of felt the same size and sandwich it between the wrapper papers, with the wrong sides of the papers facing the felt.
3. Machine stitch with gold thread around edges of the sandwich.
4. Make a hole with a small eyelet at the bottom end.
5. Thread small gold beads and paper bead onto gold wire and attach to tag through the eyelet.
6. Cut a 1" square from the candy wrapper paper of contrasting color.
7. Using a flower punch, punch a shape from metal foil and attach the flower to the square with the small brad.
8. Machine stitch the square to the tag with gold thread.
That's what I love about collage and mixed media. You can turn pretty much anything into art.
For more mixed-media collage ideas from Beryl, download her Cloth Paper Scissors WorkshopTM video "Layer by Layer." And to learn more about paper and other collage supplies and how to use them, visit our new Collage Topics page here on the Cloth Paper Scissors community.
