Happy Spring DIY Recycled Art

I’m always changing up my art and color palette. After Valentine’s Day when things are all red and pink around the house and then St. Patrick’s Day when everything is green, I’m ready for some blues.

This word art is easy to make using scrap pieces of thin wood, a variety of paint colors and some die cut words and butterflies from your paper crafting stash.

One of the fun things about when you work with individual scraps of wood is that you can mix and match the colors and move things around until you are happy with the combination. I like working that way. You don’t have to make the decisions up front; you can simply paint each piece with a color and if you like it, it stays and if not, you can swap it out or move it to another location. For this project, I used Waverly Chalk paint in Ocean, Milk Paint and Folk Art Acrylic paint.

I went to the die cut stash and gathered up all my word dies and cut them out in a variety of printed papers. I did the same with my collection of butterfly dies. Like working with individual wood pieces painted different colors, the individual paper pieces can be moved around until you like the layout.

I tried quite a number of different papers for the butterflies, but some were too dark or the print was too bold.

Once I had the colors of the wood arranged the way I liked I hot glued them to a center strip of wood on the back side.

Then, I arranged the words “Fun”, “Happy”, “Lucky”, “Spring” and “Relax” on each board and then filled in with the butterflies.

Once I had them the way I liked, I used a tape runner to glue the words down flat.

I used a dab of hot glue on the center of the butterflies and slightly folded the wings up so they would pop off the surface a bit, giving the art piece a bit of dimension.

To hang the word art, I hot glued a piece of wire bent into a slight “U” onto the back at the top edge.

Any level crafter can use this technique for creating wall art, as everyone can paint a single color and die cut their favorite words and shapes. Simply keep trying different combinations until you like what you see!

Stefanie Girard is a crafter with a re-purpose. She has been cutting stuff up since she was old enough to hold a pair of scissors in her tiny hands. She earned her degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and move to Los Angeles to work in the entertainment industry first as a Set Decorator and Prop Master then onto TV Producer specializing in How-To TV shows for HGTV and the DIY Networks. After writing 5 craft books for the Quarto Publishing Group she now spreads the crafty word online through book reviews and original projects with a focus on recycled elements at SweaterSurgery.blogspot.com.