Gallery Idol, Round 4

Good afternoon! Today I am sharing my card for the 4th round of Paper Craft's Gallery Idol.  I am soooo excited to still be competing!  A big thanks to anyone who might have voted for me in round 3 :)

The theme for this round is "household items."  I have to be honest that this round has been the trickiest thus far.  I had considered using a sponge (cut up into millions of teeny tiny pieces and glued onto the card), a paintbrush (bristles cut off and re-used somehow), and more.  After much debate, I finally settled on a few items:  shelf liner, plastic bags, and a Q-tip.  Let me show you the finished card first, then give you a step-by-step.

The black part is the rubbery shelf liner:

(from the dollar store...I'm cheap, what can I say?!?)

The feather was a bit more complicated.  I started off by taking a plastic shopping bag (I used the bag I got when I purchased the shelf liner!) and I cut it up into strips.  I'd say they were about 6 inches long by a half inch wide- but it really doesn't matter.  Mine were inconsistent, and they worked fine:

Next, I prepped the Q-tip by taking off the cotton from either end:

Once you have stripped your Q-tip, start to tie on the plastic strips:

Again, I'm not going for perfection here- I just double-knotted each one, making sure it was tightly secured.

Here's what it looks like with about half tied on:

(lovely, huh?!)

Once you have bag strips tied on almost to the bottom, you'll want to start gluing.  Since I was making this up as I went along, I have no advice other than to glob it on, then smooth it out.  You want all of the bag pieces to stick together:

(augh...look at my fingernails. I always wish I could have long perfectly manicured nails, but alas, what you see above are viola-playing fingers. Stumpy nails and calluses!)

After the glue has dried, you can go back and trim with scissors to make a nice feather shape.  I intentionally made mine a bit imperfect by cutting out a few notches from the side, and separating the bag pieces.  I also bent the Q-tip a bit into a more natural shape:

Here's another look at the finished card:

We're getting closer to the end of the competition, so it is even more important that you take the time to vote!  Contest information can be found here, and if you think you want to vote for my card you can get a direct link to my entry HERE or in my sidebar.

So glad you could stop by!