Upcycle til it Sparkles & Shines!

Hi My blogger friends,

Today I am here to share a project I made for the Finnabair challenge: Sparkle & Shine.  I have been in love with mixed media for awhile now but have done only a few projects.  When I saw that Finnabair was doing a blog hop and challenge I knew I just had to join in.   I love her work and even have a board on my Pinterest page where I collect my favorites. 

So here I go with my wacky piece for the challenge.  We had a printer that no longer worked so I asked Mac to disassemble it for me.  I ended up with a box full of strange looking parts and the most wonderful little gears in all sizes.    I have to confess that although I love the pieces that came from it I procrastinated when it came to making something. This is one time when procrastination paid off because I love this crazy thing.

I used photos of Mac in this piece because it's computer and printer related - even if it is in pieces. Mac's my go to guy for all my mechanical and programing questions.  He doesn't know much about blogging or how to use software but he always comes to the rescue for the hardware issues.  Then of course I had to add the final touch, the goggles.

 

 The entire piece shines and the two places where I have placed the funky lights from Prima sparkle.  I used acetate and glitter for the rays.

 

 I just had so much fun putting this together and I'm oh so happy with the way the colors look.  This is the view from the upper left corner.

 

Here's how I did it!

 

I started out with a 9" X 12" canvas because that is the size that the printer piece fit on best.  I put one coat of gesso on it and then some tissue paper for texture.  Then I used a Finnabair stencil and texture paste.  Then of course more gesso.

I found some corrugated cardstock in my stash so glued it down on the left side of the canvas.  Then gesso again.

I added the printer piece and then gesso!

 I then started looking through my stash for items to use and started laying them out to see what I wanted to do before moving on.  Then I set the loose pieces aside for gluing later.

 

 Then the painting, spraying and experimenting part began.

 

I used some blues, burgundy, rust and greens. 

When the color was all applied the way I wanted it, I sealed it and then covered it with gel medium mixed with pigment powder.  It was very shiny and the colors really popped.

I still have all this left in the box.

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend -
S@ndy