Happy Earth Day!

In fact, the next few days contain Earth Day celebrations globally, so perhaps it's Earth week, LOL. And when I Googled for info, I saw a couple of celebrations that were on Saturday, the 18th, but that might have been for the sake of weekday workers who wanted to plants trees or some other day-long venture.

Those of you who've been reading my blog for a year or more know I like to make something to honor this day that incorporates the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle theme. This year I wanted to add bestowing an award to someone special who is environmentally aware and pushes for it on their blog more than anyone else I know.

The choice for me was easy. I immediately thought of my friend Vicki Cook, who never fails to commemorate days of action on her blog, whether it be to celebrate the beauty of trees, to plant flowers, install a bird feeder, or coax new birdie visitors with a nesting house.

Vicki, I salute you for being a 2008 Earth Angel and all around Nature Girl Extraordinaire! Here's your award, for displaying on your blog sidebar (I hope!):


Ok, so on to my Earth Day creation. I wanted to make Vicki a piece of hanging art-iness, and I wanted to include my ATC "Patchwork Earth" that I'd made weeks ago, because I'd originally made it with Earth Day in mind. Although I'd been excited about making this ATC from little slivers of scrap paper to look like a quilt, I wasn't 100% happy with it when I finished it. It was missing something.

So, I laid it aside and forgot about it for a while, hoping and knowing deep down that I'd come up with something to make it more acceptable to my tastes. Picking it back up recently, I decided to do the back with a map of the world stamped image (one of those background stamps from a previous post that I mounted cling cushion on and created storage in the VHS tape cases). I then let it sit some more and thought about adding some rhinestones and jewels and maybe some little stamped cut-out birdies to finish that side.

Turning to the front of the CD, I decided to go over the red gel pen with black, blue and green, thereby toning the red down some. That helped. And, I coated the entire top with my favorite Diamond Glaze, which always makes things look better. I also filled in the bottlecap earth with some Glaze, and then I applied some Crystal Stickles to the inside perimeter. Now, I was getting happy with this little card.

Next, how to hang it? Well, I killed two birds with one stone by using an old CD -- I was able to recycle, plus I'd be able to get out my alcohol inks and paint like I'd been wanting to. That done, I went looking for other elements I could add that were sitting around waiting to be re-used. I had some skinny green satin ribbon that I'd looked at for a few months on my creating desk, so I grabbed it and curling-ironed it straight, then stitched it through holes I'd punched with my Cropadile. Then, I found some beads that were the perfect colors and started stringing two tails on the bottom. (And I might add a couple of "arms" on the side.
I think those beads are so pretty, like porcelain or that turquoise kitchen ware from California in the 1940's (with the drink pitchers that look like a tire-shape with a spout and a handle?) Uh, yeah, obviously, I don't collect dishware, right? ROFL!

Anyway, I'm terribly later than I wanted to be with this post, because nothing went anywhere near a timetable today. So, I'll close with a cool thingy you can make to funnel rain water from your gutter to a rain barrel. And, it hangs, too!You can then re-use the water for feeding and watering plants and birds. You'll find instructions here, courtesy of Lowes.