Ping * Arch and other artists

[Speicher]

Your home-made Christmas Card was lovely.

Have you heard of "Scrap Stores"? The one in Worcestershire is at www.wre.uk.com. Note to admin, I do not think this is an advert because it is non-profit making, but let me know if you disagree.

Many County Councils have something similar, but may call it something slightly different. There is a job vacancy there at the moment, for a Manager I think, but I imagine, Arch, that you would prefer to remain in Yorkshire. I thought you, and others might like to know about it as a source of art and craft materials, and a lot else besides.

I am currently trying to find a way of making Christmas decorations using one or all of the following:
approx 3,000 yards of shiny blue tape, scrap from videos production
ditto red tape
Goldy coloured fringey stuff, about 100 yds.
Snowflakey type plastic film, blue sticky stuff 4 inches wide.
Cannot use glue Anyone got any ideas - especially Fnaar

 

[Aperitif]

Do a 'Christo' mass decoration and wrap up Worcestershire Police HQ...when they turn the lights on inside, the building will be showing blue films...(not unknown,,,allegedly )

 

[Speicher]

Thank you Aperatif for your imaginative (allegedly) reply.

But perhaps I should mention that these decorations are intended to be small enough to go in windows, (no, not on a computer).

 

[Arch]

Speicher, that's a great link, thank you, I'm going to see if there's anything like that up here. I do know there's a nursery (plants, not babies) that do work with handicapped people, who make cards and stuff, and they take leftover craft materials like paper, but I don't think they do an exchange... They have some lovely pressed leaf or flower cards, I always try to have a couple in stock for birthdays and so on...

As for decorations....

This shiney tape, how wide is it? Could you make sort of rosettes out of it? I'm thinking make a loop, then another, then another, in a flower shape, holding them together with finger and thumb, and then whack a staple through the middle to hold it once you've gone all the way round (does that make sense? It's hard to describe). You could cut a little disc of shiney card or sticky stuff to cover the staple, and either hang individually from strings or stick to a garland (that fringy stuff perhaps?)

Ooh, that sounds like fun, I wish I was there playing with that stuff. I have a bit box full of odds and ends, I can't resist a nice piece of paper or shiney ribbon, but I never quite get round to using it.... Glad you liked the card. I found the tissue really cheap in The Works, and just stuck it to a base card with watered down PVA, in random cut up shapes, and then put the coloured card stencil over the top...

 

[Speicher]

Thank you Arch for your suggestion. We did try something like that but unfortunately due to the way the tape was stored, every 6 or 7 inches, there is a sort of fold in the tape, so it does not want to curl very well, to make sort of flowery things. I suppose we could try cutting lengths that have not been folded in that way. We also tried the scraping along the edge of scissors business to get it to curl, but all that happened is that we got a lot of blue or red dust everywhere.

My colleague and I will have another go tomorrow. As the schools do not break up until Friday, I don't think we will be swamped by children this time. Are you in North, East or West Yorkshire? I will ask my colleagues if they can find their equivalent in your area. I think it is very strange that we cannot use glue, but we can use staples.

 

[Arch]

York is North Yorks...

Yeah, the glue thing, so is that an 'elf and safety issue? Or do they not want kids sniffing it? CAN you sniff PVA?

I don't know what age kids you are working with, this might be a bit fiddly, and if you wanted I'd have to send you a template, so maybe for next year, but a friend showed me a couple of years ago how to make some really nice looking baubles, with a cardboard 'cube' (it was more a sort of diamond shape) and sparkley thread wound round it in a pattern to make a sort of woven design... Very effective, but needs a fairly neat worker...

How about cutting the tape into lengths a couple of inches long, creasing each lengthwise to strengthen it, then stapling them together in a star shape, rather than looping them?

 

[Speicher]

Yes I will try that. I brought some of the materials home with me to experiment with, if I got any ideas. We have our Christmas Party on Friday, so I could take in my effort then.

We generally have Primary School children on the activities in the school holidays, so we try to have fairly simple ideas that children can achieve by themselves.

We received a "new" bicycle this week. It is really a bicycle powered radio, Medium wave only . I took some photos of it today, and will try and put them on the forum. I will need to be careful with this , Dom Tyler does not need anymore "evidence". I also took a photo of the fruit-powered clock., and yes it keeps very good time.