Mounted Toy Plaques

Come One, Come All to the Spring Circus Toy Ball....

Its the first day of Spring.  What does that mean? Nature waking up, longer days of sunlight, flowers sprouting, trees glistening and birds chirping. Spring is a time to clear out the old and ring in the new. Its this time of year that we plan for the warm days of summer.

Spring is also the start of circus and carnival season which lasts till the end of November.  The calliope music, the kettle corn, candy apples and the big top. Ornate performers, glowing amusements and boardwalk adventures are all waiting for us this coming months.

As a lover of circus themes and the author behind: "Altered Art Circus", Quarry Books, Lisa Kettell, I am preparing for a new season of adventure.  To kick off the season I have created some new projects to share with you.  One of the projects is called: "Mounted Toy Plaques"and was inspired by a project in my book, "Altered Art Circus".  Which involved recycling discarded plastic animal toys.

For this piece I recycled a small plastic animal toy, mounted it on scrapbook covered wood craft circle, and embellished.  Its really simple to do and I will tell you how.

Materials:

• Small plastic toy animals
• Medium sized wood craft circle
• Medium sized scrapbook embellishment frame
• Scrapbook paper
• Crepe paper
• Glitter
• Glues: hot glue, craft glue
• Tools: hot glue gun, hot heat tool, scissors
• ( I used the hot marks tool kit w/ hot knife point by Walnut Hollow) 

Directions:

1. Layer the medium sized wood craft circle with scrapbook paper, secure in place with craft glue.
2. Line the medium sized scrapbook embellishment frame onto the scrapbook lined wood craft circle.
3. Using the hot knife point with the hot tool, cut the plastic animal toy in half. Then hot glue to the center of the wood craft circle.
4. Decorate the mounted plastic animal with crepe paper, a paper hat, glitter and trims.

Tips/Tricks:

1. Use a piece of chipboard or cut a circle from a discard piece of cardboard or box.
2. Use scrapbook borders or trim such as pom pom in place of the frame.
3. Add tags, and additional embellishments to the piece.
4. Create several, connect with ribbon for a banner or small swag.
5. Make larger mounted plaques using larger plastic toy animals mounted on larger backgrounds such as round frames and book covers.
6. Instead of plastic animals, make one out of clay or layer an image.
7. All discarded plastic toys or doll heads will work as well.

To purchase small plastic toys for $3.95 for a bundle visit my artfire store:
http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/MoonfairesWorld 

If they sell out, email me at lisakettell@yahoo.com for a reserved listing.
xoxo
Lisa