Our recycling is full of junk mail and election flyers. Hating to see all that colorful and heavy card stock paper just go to waste, we decided to create something from them. Here are the results of our endeavor. After the jump, find out more about how we made this simple junk mail triptych.
Junk Mail Art
• Collect flyers from your mail. The more varied and colorful, the better. You can also use magazines and catalogs, but we prefer the thicker weight of these election and junk mail flyers for this project.
• Use a black Sharpie marker to draw droplet shapes on the flyers. We liked drawing them about the same size and shape, but a little variance also makes the finished project more interesting. We drew the droplets over a variety of color backgrounds, with and without text or images within each droplet.
• Next, use a scissor to cut out the droplets, making sure to cut outside the black outline.
• Arrange and glue the droplets on a sheet of paper in an interesting, random pattern.
• Frame the finished piece. Tada! You got yourself some lovely junk mail art!
Related Posts:
• Art from Recycled Junk Mail by Sandhi Schimmel Gold
• Look!: Recycling Project, Junk Mail Trees
• Reduce Junk Mail In Your Mailbox
Comments (16)
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That came out pretty nice. How long did it take?
view K T G's profile
cool. what a great idea. and cheap to boot! :)
view animalhouze's profile
Cute!
view visualingual's profile
Wow that is pretty neat, never thought of that, looks cool.
view betseygirl's profile
this is a nice DIY project.
view Daniel Poitiers's profile
K T G: Thanks! It took about 2 or 3 hours for all three.
view sarahh's profile
Wow! LOVE it!
view paintitbright's profile
i love it!
now get yourself off of as many mailing lists as you can, sweetie.
view *heather leaf*'s profile
You can get on a do not mail list, like this one: https://www.directmail.com/directory/mail_preference/
I have had good luck with that, although I still get local circulars for grocery stores once in a while.
*This is a cool project btw, and very pretty.
view jakelegs's profile
I still get some junk mail, I have been writing a note to the mail carrier to send it back so he doesn't put it back in my mailbox. However, if you don't get as much junk mail as you need to accomplish this, your neighbors may be discarding their junk in the lobby, and sometimes at work, people get on crazy mailing lists for seminars or technical stuff. I see stacks of postcard-type cardstock advertising at local businesses. You could scrounge up materials in a lot of ways. It's best to be off mailing lists, and I guess there's not as much point to doing this if you're not trying to use up stuff you didn't already have, but whatever.
view K T G's profile
Hella cute!
view MoJonson's profile
Have you ever seen the work by artist Aurora Robson? It's all recycled materials and she even does some beautiful junkmail collages. You can check them out here: http://aurorarobson.com/index.php?option=com_gallery2&Itemid=47&g2_itemId=26
and here: http://www.theshinysquirrel.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=443
also great re-use of plastic bottles. if you're into artistic recycling definitely check out her website
view sneakers's profile
Sneakers: Thanks for the links! I hadn't seen her work before. They are beautiful!
view sarahh's profile
Genius!
view traderdi's profile
Those Bed Bath & Beyond coupons never expire and you can use a bunch at a time- one per item. I have a stack of them I keep in the car if I find myself driving by and remember that I need a new paper towel holder, or wedding gift, or whatever.
Though they do add a lovely shade of blue to the artwork.
view teeze's profile
Teeze, Linens and things will also accept those bed bath and beyond coupons.
also, this i a really cute idea.
view Bobbycat5's profile