A Quick & Free Project

So I used to do a lot more of office work related to the opening of mail (accounts receivable) and sort of fell in love with the patterns on the inside of security envelopes. I know I'm weird. And when I say "fell in love with" I mean the way you love a scarf or your new hair cut, not the way you love your husband or your child. So I start hoarding keeping envelopes from work with the idea that some day I will do something cool with them. So some day was the other day when I realized that the large circle paper punch (that I bought to make gift tags for christmas) was the catalyst needed to take these used envelopes from trash to treasure. 

 So I started sifting through my now out of control envelope collection and punching out circles. There were stripes and plaids and dots and birds and rings and numbers and all sorts of great patterns. I only used the blue ones for this project, but saved the blacks, greens, and even a pink or two for a future project. 

Then with my trusty purple Elmer's glue stick, I tacked the circles down on whatever cardboardy stuff was in the frame I wanted to use (total transparency here folks).

 I really like the way it turned out! All different shades of blue, with interesting but subtle patterns. I've had a few people try to guess what my material was when they look at the frame, so far no one has guessed correctly. The patterns just look like an old familiar face that you just can't seem to place.

 As planned it is up in the gallery (in the collection of teal frames on the living room walls, I promise I will show you this soon, I have more posts planned than I have time to write).  Please ignore the framed news paper and scrap book paper they are just colorful and decent-ish frame fillers while I wait for my next big idea. {Do you see the hippo (hint: the fish aren't in front of a rock)?}