Throwback Thursday Technique

Ok yes this is a day late posting!  I started a new series over on my You Tube Channel, Artful Creations by Tracie, called Throwback Thursday Technique.  Each week I plan to spotlight a type of technique that we used to do (and maybe even still do now but improved)!  This week's was on Altered Items.

You can easily alter just about anything you'd like, many things we already have around our house or can pick up at a second hand store for pennies on a dime (if you're a good thrift store shopper)!  The two items that I decided to showcase for this week's video were paperclips and old CDs.  Any style paperclip will do but I think it's fun to have some crazy shaped paperclips, which I have several types of.  How do we alter these?  Easy, we emboss them!  That's right you can emboss paperclips using the same technique you would use on your paper.  All you need is your paperclips, embossing ink, embossing powder and a heat tool.  I take my paperclips and press them into the embossing ink pad and using a pair of reverse tweezers, remove them and put them onto either a piece of paper, or an unused coffee filter and sprinkle a generous amount of embossing powder on top.  Use those same tweezers (reverse tweezers are great because they serve two purposes, one to lock and hold your item so it doesn't move or drop and number two, the heat tool will not come anywhere near your fingers), to hold the clip and heat up that embossing powder and watch it melt! 

Once that is done let it sit and cool for a few minutes then you can repeat the process to get a nice coat onto your paperclip, any color will do!  Now your paperclips are ready for any paper project and can easily color coordinate to your needs.   Next to each one is what it originally looked like.  

For my next project I create an altered CD that you can easily make into a card or an ornament for your tree.  I probably made my first altered CD at least 10 years ago. I don't know about you but I happened to have quite a plethora of CDs that I have collected over the years, a lot came in the mail such as those from Stamps.com and I just keep them knowing I will use them.  If you watch my video you will see exactly how I create these using an old tool I've had for many  years.  You don't need this tool because all it did was cut out my circles, if you have a Cricut or a Silhouette, you can easily make those without any problem, I just thought it would be fun to drag that out and use it.  Let me know what you think of my CD oranments!