No Cash Trash Bash: TP Wall Art

This no-cash trash bash is somthing that makes me immensely happy.  I am alway crafty and often broke.  The total cost of this craft is probably less than $2, but it cost me NOTHING because it was all stuff I had around the house: 1/2 a hot glue stick, maybe 1/4 can of spray paint and stuff saved from the landfill.

This idea was totally inspired by my boss. She is quite crafty and she came in last week with an idea for wall art she was thinking about doing for the living room. I was in love with the idea and decided to give it a whirl. (I did warn her that I was jacking her brilliance and she was good with it. A few of us at work swap ideas regularly.) Working with elementary school kids, we know the value of a good toilet paper / paper towel roll. How brilliant would it be to turn something that is literally garbage into beautiful wall art? Well, that's just what I did.

I should mention that I'm still house-sitting and some of my tools (like a ruler, for starters) are not here with me. To start, I took 3 paper towel rolls and measured lines the width of this pie looking tool thing I found in the drawer. I cut all these little sections out (and kept having to wrestle them away from the cat) then decided I had enough to get started. I was watching a movie ["Lost in Austen", available for instant viewing on Netflix. A really cute movie if you love Pride and Prejudice] during this whole part, it's definitely a mindless activity which is nice to have from time to time. I then began to assemble the piece. It was a very organic process, I just kind of stuck one where it looked like it needed to go. The more I added, the more I liked it. When I had all the cut pieces glued on, I considered cutting the toilet paper rolls I had collected for this craft, but decided I should stop while I was ahead.

After I had my piece all glued together, I took it out back to spray. In retrospect, spray painting it in this manner was not fun. Raw cardboard toilet paper rolls absorb so much spray paint that you have to do a zillion coats before you see full coverage. Also, you're trying to get in and around all the surfaces of waaaaaaay to many little circles. Next time, I'm going to paint the tubes with acrylic BEFORE I glue. This was really the most frustrating part of the project... other than the time my glue gun went rogue while I was trying to balance the piece I was about to glue on and catch the falling piece... Yeah... not fun. All in all, though, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this project. 

My final piece isn't exactly "final" yet, because I'm not home to hang it on the wall, but this is what I have right now.

Have you ever done something surprisingly beautiful with toilet paper rolls?

Linked on: More the Merrier Monday , Meet Me Monday , So Creative Party Time , Tutorial Tuesday , Crafty Lassie Tuesday ,