Patterns and Plastic

I've been hoarding  saving plastic lids for a while now, thinking I'd have my Art Clubs make some mosaics with them. It didn't take me as long as you might think to collect these. And that's scary. Plastic is everywhere isn't it?

Here is some info from the EPA website:

• 32 million tons of plastic waste were generated in 2012, representing 12.7 percent of total MSW.
• In 2012, the United States generated almost 14 million tons of plastics as containers and packaging, about 11 million tons as durable goods such as appliances, and almost 7 million tons as nondurable goods, such as plates and cups.
• Only 9 percent of the total plastic waste generated in 2012 was recovered for recycling.

I'm an ardent recycler, but our area takes the containers but won't take lids. Still, I don't have room to store all the lids I would need to make this work with my 120+ students, so I made three panels myself to act as placeholders on my Art Club bulletin boards at my 3 schools. Once I have student work to put up, I'll have three panels to store. Anyone need some lid art? :D

 The cardboard is from packaging I scavenged from one school- it's from the boxes tagboard comes in. (And boy, does that school go through the tagboard!) It's the same cardboard we use for our freestyle paintings…)
 I spray painted it black with leftovers from a light fixture redo, and the glue (The Ultimate! by Crafter's Pick) was in my stash too. So practically free from start to finish.

(At first, I played with writing the word art, but decided I liked the rows and organic designs better.)

 The cool green and orange rings are from old Target pharmacy bottles. (The rings are now attached to the bottles, too bad!) The darker green caps are from carrot juice. (We used the bottles for paper mache people…must post those soon!) The white rings are from tape rolls- I go through a lot of double-sided tape to mount student artwork.

Each panel measures 28 1/2"x 22 1/2". I didn't count how many caps. :D



Make it a Wonderful Day!