Embellish Challenge & Recycling Pepsi Max Tins!!!

Hi there everyone

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend! We went blackberry picking yesterday so that I could make some more of my apple & blackberry jam. I can't tell you how many 'ouches' there were as we picked them. We got spiked, stabbed and scratched all over the place, but came home with a nice supply of fruit! :o)

Today I'd like to share a card with you that I made for the current Embellish challenge. The challenge is to use purple, green and black, with squares.

Here is what I made...

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use some skills I've recently learnt using metal/plastic, in this case Pepsi Max tins! I was sent an e-book written by Mahe Zehra Husain,  called 'Crafty Cans and Perplexing Plastic' that she wanted me to review, but of course I couldn't just read it, I had to play! When I saw the Embellish challenge I knew what I wanted to make.  Can you believe those little metal squares have 'Pepsi Max' written all over the back of them.  How cool is that?!!!!! 

I don't know about you, but I know I have to think about recycling.  Don't get me wrong I do recycle the usual items, like household jars/tins, clothing etc etc. but it's very easy to throw away odd scraps of paper and other bits that could be saved and used another time, but it's something else to hoard that will never be found again!  I really do want to recycle more though, so when Mehe sent me the book I was very interested.  Her e-book teaches you how to make great use of those old aluminium cans and plastic items that you throw away, and turn them into embellishments for cards, jewellery, items for around the home, tags etc.  It is a step by step instruction manual, very clearly written, with lots of colourful ideas of how to create mini pieces of art with things that we would normally just throw away.  I have only used one of the techniques she has shown, there are many more to try.

The book explains how to use your Cuttlebug or Sizzix machine to make your own embellishments.  In the book Mehe uses Sharpies to colour in her images, but as I didn't have any of these to colour with (and didn't want to spend £12.99 on a pack just to try out something that I might not even enjoy!)  I decided to see if my Copics would work.  Well they do!  After embossing my image onto my little squares I then coloured them in with Copics, it is such good fun!  But even better is the fact that if you make a mistake and go over the edges of the pattern you can use the colourless blender to remove them!!!  You can use other mediums, such as Tim Holtz alcohol inks, but I will leave that for the clever crafters out there lol.  I just feel proud that I managed to use an old tin to create something pretty!  Fun!!

This is what has been said about the book ...

This full color 40 page e-book covers all the techniques you will need to create your own cards, embellishments, jewelry and home decor items.  The book features step by step instructions with accompanying photographs, in all the book has 58 full color photographs to guide you through the magical process of upcycling and to inspire you to create your own art!

You can see more information on the book here and the link to buy it is here.  So pop on over to the links and see what you think, let's try and use up more of our rubbish while having some fun in the process!

Happy playing!!