Upcycle

                                                        Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

July's Art Elements theme is Upcycle.  Upcycle can mean junkyard art, recycle, repurpose etc.  In the end, you need to give something new life. To join this challenge all you need do is create something using repurposed items. it can be a beautiful piece of art, a useful practical item or something that combines both. 

I decided to start with a special piece of tin that have had for awhile.  The small circular tin has a Scottish terrier on it.  Having spent much of my childhood with a Scottish born grandfather and a Scottish terrier as a pet, I knew right away that I would make something with it.  

I knew that I wanted to enlarge the appearance of the tin and add some weight to it to turn it in to a pendant. I decided to back the area with red plaid faux leather which I had eft from a previous project. I used a circular die and Sizzix machine that I use for making my handmade cards. I cut out a larger circle than the tin and used it to layer under the tin.

I love how the red plaid brings out the red on the dog's bow tie. Red is the color that I decided to add where possible. With black as the other dominant color in the necklace, I wanted to brighten it up.

To increase the size of the pendent and add more red, I placed the circular piece of red plaid faux leather under the circular dog tin.  I lined up the plaid circle with the hole in the tin and punched through the leather to create a hole that is large enough to put a 12 inch piece of black annealed wire through.  I made a simple loop and left a 8 inch tail of wire to stack a red bead.  I created another simple loop with the wire.  I made sure to keep a tail long enough to loop over the black sea glass.  On the other end of the sea glass I threaded 3mm wide soft deer leather.  I was able to find a black bead that had a hole large enough to run 2 pieces of the leather through. 

  

Next, I tied an overhand knot to keep these pieces in place.  I added a small lobster clasp at the ends.  Actually the necklace is large enough to slip over your head.  For some extra flare I added a piece of same black leather above the red bead and tied a knot on each end of the cord.

                                                 Scottish Terrier Necklace by BayMoonDesign

I am very happy with the necklace.  It has a handsome pendant and a soft comfortable leather strap.

It is available in my online BayMoonDesign shop.