Textile challenge piece

I have been busy lately doing a lot of textile work. Over the next few weeks I have a lot to share.

Today I am sharing my finished wall art for my textile groups 2nd life challenge. We started last year collecting 12 items to be recycled into a piece of art and putting them in a bag. We were also allowed to add one new thing. At our December meeting we put all the bags together and then got to choose one that was not our own to use in our work. We also had a lucky dip to select the theme for our piece. I was lucky and got Music as my theme. It was a very broad theme. 

This was the bag I chose. I thought it looked interesting with the cardboard roll sticking out the top. It was fun going through the bag to see what we had to use. Some bags had very unusual items to use in an art piece. One of the rules of the challenge was that we should use 1 part of each of the 13 items we received in our finished art work.

This was what was in my bag. At first I was perplexed to how I could use this lot in a textile art piece, especially the mint tin which was quite hard to cut up because the metal was so thick. In the end I used tin snips to cut that into rectangles.  

I used all 13 items in my finished art work. Most of them have been altered in some way to make them fit into my theme and colour scheme. Here is what I did:
1. Cardboard roll - I cut it down the middle to flatten it then ran it through an embossing machine. I painted it green. You can see it in a couple of places, one is under the harp.
2. Ribbon - I applied texture paste through a stencil and when dry painted some blue and other pieces gold.
3. Foam crown - I removed the circles and stars then cut the last piece into a rectangle. I used texture paste with a circle stencil on the shapes then gave them a coat of dimensional magic to make them look shiny. The rectangle was run through the embossing machine and painted. It is under the beads at the top,
4. Ring pulls - these were flattened then heat embossed with pinkish embossing powder and threaded onto a ribbon.
5. Popsicle stick - cut into 3 then I used a wood burning tool to write sing on one piece. The other two pieces were given a coat of puff paint then painted. I really love that effect.
6. Black cord - I used my sewing machine to zigzag variegated thread over the black changing it completely. I then cut it into pieces and used it in a few areas.
7. Oval earring - The lower half was used to make the mandolin and to top is used like a button just above the mandolin.
8. Mint tin - I ran the tin pieces through an embossing machine and then painted and distressed the metal. They are the pinky/gold pieces in a few different spots.
9. Pink flower beads - I used alcohol ink to color them brown.
10. Bread tag - I stitched a piece of fabric paper and stuck it to the tag.
11. Clothing tag - I applied copper foil over the tag and used it under some beads at the top of the piece.
12. Christmas paper - I used the paper to make fabric paper which is the background and also some of the smaller backgrounds throughout the piece.
13. Self covered buttons - I hammered them flat and painted them to make them into records.
I also painted all the fabrics I was given and used them as backgrounds. The fake leather piece became my guitar and the sheer fabric became my beads and ribbon.
I added machine stitching and embroidery to tie everything together and make the piece attractive. The whole thing is mounted onto a piece of embossed felt that I had in my stash. It was quite a challenge and I am happy with the way my art finished up. If I didn't tell you would you know it was made mainly from a pile of junk?