Green / Recycle / Irish / St. Patrick's Day at Anything But A Card. . . . . .

I'm joining my team mates on week two for the challenge at Anything But A Card. The theme is an interesting one and caters for all tastes. At first I thought it was really difficult but when I discarded the part I didn't want to do (sorry all Irish bloggers!),  I realised that what was left was green and recycle. I can do that,  I thought! If you haven't entered yet you must go over to ABAC and see what the other designers have come up too - so many different ideas for one challenge!

Ages ago I bought some old beer mats in a fab vintage shop in Brighton. I had no idea what I would do with them then but they were the perfect items for this challenge.

I used the beer mats as the shape template and middle layer for some drinks coasters plus a larger bottle mat.

Lots of pictures I'm afraid but I like to show you everything:

The three main layers for each mat. The green layer was made using distress inks and some water spritzing. The beer mat followed by a layer of recycled card from the back of a paper pad.

The final pieces: 6 glass coasters gift wrapped with some recycled ribbon; a circular bottle mat and a fabric  gift tag which matches the images used in the project.

The fabric tag was stamped, coloured with distress inks. For extra strength the shape was then attached to a second piece of fabric using bond-a-web. Some areas of the design were picked out with black stitching. The edges of the tag were zig-zag stitched to stop them fraying. Card was attached to the back so a message can be written. An eyelet was added with some black ribbon.

The complete set of coasters: square for the glasses, round for a bottle.

For each coaster a background was made using distress inks, some stencilling with distress inks and some with embossing ink and mica powder.

Various Lynne P images were stamped in archival. Each coaster than received two coats of clear embossing powder. Utee may have been a better choice but I find it can dull colours and I wanted these to remain bright and vibrant. You can see the mica in this image: it appears as gold-like shadows here and there.

The back of each coaster was covered with black felt to act as insulation and protection for polished surfaces.












After glueing the layers together, a gold leaf pen was used to finish the edges.







Remember: you can do the four leaf clover and leprachaun theme or you can go green and/or recycle. I can't wait to see what you come up with!