Recycled Poinsettia

     This seasonal brooch has been made from drink cans. It's quite a good way of recycling something and turning it into a hand crafted gift for Christmas.
     To begin with cut open the drink can carefully, I would suggest wearing gardening gloves when you do this to protect your hands and use an old pair of scissors. At this stage the edges are sharp but once die cut they are rounded over slightly and much safer to handle.

     I have used a Sizzix Bigz die, Tattered poinsettia. These dies have a blade embedded in the foam so they are sharp enough to cut metal, unfortunately Spellbinders and similar rely on pressure on the ridge to cut and metal is just to thick.
     My flower has been coloured using Alcohol Inks but alcohol markers will also work well. The metal can be passed through an embossing folder to get texture on the petals but this time I have just used a nylon tool to score veins on them. I remembered I had a metal craft tool set in the cupboard so I have been making great use of that again, it has some really useful nylon tool heads as well as a selection of fancy pattern wheels.
     There are two large petal sets, one coloured with greens, one coloured with green and red, then one middle size petal set and one small both coloured with red only. The centre is coloured yellow as is the paper fastener that holds it all together. There are lots of really nice brads available that would look great as flower centres but paper fasteners work just as well and they can be coloured too.
     I have stitched a brooch back to a felt flower shape that has double sided sticky sheet on it, once the brooch back is on I have peeled off the sticky cover and placed it on the back of the brooch. This saves trying to glue the brooch back on ( I tried that and it didn't go well!) and it covers the brad back making it all look tidy.
     I hope you have a go at this, it's much easier than it looks and you have a valid reason to drink something fizzy now!

I would like to enter this brooch in the following challenges:

Try It On Tuesday - Make your own flowers

Country View Crafts - Layers

Our Creative Corner - Forgotten things