Lessology Challenge #61: Bag Collector

This month's Lessology Challenge was a no brainer for me!  A few months ago my sons were visiting and we stopped into a second hand store.  As they were bagging up the many treasures we picked out, they used this once loved bag leftover from someone's vacation to bag up some of our items.  It was in slightly better shape than this as I had started cutting it apart before I thought to take a pic but it was mostly torn and in pretty rough shape.

I hung onto it because I had this idea to make it into a wall hanging because I thought the design on it was interesting and then along came this month's Lessology Challenge.  So here's what I did with it:

 

I washed the bag and then let it air dry as it's made of a burlap material.  Then I cut it apart... I cut the front to use for this project and saved the back piece for later... I mean... who can't use some extra burlap??  Originally I was planning on stapling it onto the 12x12 canvas but it turns out the doublesided redline tape works very well and allowed me to stretch the material around the canvas where I wanted it and then I can hide a few well placed staples on the back.

I used some white acrylic paint to pull the skull and Ace of Spades to the front so the rest of the decorations wouldn't overpower them as much.  I also colored in the leaves that were printed on the bag in green with my previously purchased Neon Sharpie.

I almost covered up most of the flowers on the bag, but then I decided I liked the depth it added to treat them as if they were another layer of flowers.  Side note my adhesive for a lot of these items was liquid glass... LOVE that stuff!

And then I embellished away with some paper flowers and leaves I cut with the new CTMH Flower Market Cricut Cartridge (the larger tropical looking ones)... this one is a beauty and you are going to want it for sure!  I used two of the new colors available this month, the deeper color is Raspberry and the lighter color is called Blossom... so pretty.   I also used some premade paper flowers I had in my stash (the rose looking ones).   I added the Jack of Hearts from my previously purchased Tim Holtz ephemera, a feather I got from Hobby Lobby, the cute little die that I have no idea where they came from and then my Sis-in-Law gave me a little baggy of rusty keys she found at her house-everyone always brings me their "garbage" and I LOVE it!  And of course I added a few of my favorite gold bling gems which sadly are gone away... but don't think I didn't stock up!

I wanted to pretty up the edges of the frame since there were lots of tears and holes in that part of the bag so I used some more redline tape and wrapped some gold ribbon around the edges and I love it.  I'm thinking about going on the search for some decorative tacks to add to the edges ... so maybe it's not done quite yet... hmmmm.... I'm not above tearing something off the wall to tweak it.

My second favorite cluster is this one with those two perfect feathers at the top and that pretty metal butterfly I got from The Funky Junkie... such a great place to shop for some really wonderfully different things.

So I'm pretty happy with my new wall art that I'll put on the wall in one of our guest bedrooms and see if the boys notice it when they come for their next visit... after all... they did roll their eyes when I told them I had plans for the ratty old thing.

I sure do hope you can play along this month over at Lessology and I can't wait to see what you create!  And be sure to stop over at the blog and check out what the rest of the Design Team has made and ooh and aaah over some of the previous challenges and artwork... you'll find some really awesome upcycling ideas and beautiful creations!

Don't be a stranger!