Saturday, June 02, 2007

Have Luggage, Will Travel



I'm pleased (and relieved) with the way my gift to Kitten has turned out. It's one of those old-fashioned, hard-cased cosmetic bags. I imagine her using it to pack for spending the night with a grandparent, or packing her toys for a road trip, or playing -- like she's been doing with the old bag already when she visits here -- "I've got my ticket. Can you give me a ride to the airport?" which cracks me up.

I took a garage sale OshKosh case and spray painted it that old fashioned aqua-green color. Then, with more garage sale finds I've been accumulating, I picked children's vintage (or reprints) books that featured farm animals and collaged them on the case with regular kid's school glue. I immensely enjoyed it -- looking at those pictures and spending time with them sort of like you do when you are a kid. I used "The Shy Little Kitten" "Farm Animals" "I Can Fly" and a school reader from the 1950s.

When all the collaging was done, I brushed on ten coats of Minwax's Polycrylic Protective Finish. The whole thing, as you can see was a messy endeavor, especially the collaging part -- between the snippets everywhere and glue that kept sticking to me and stray pieces of paper. It probably didn't help that I chose to work in the living room so I could collage while also watching my Season 2 DVD set of Bewitched.



Must run to Walmart now. Mr. Big's gift to Kitten is the stuff we'll put inside -- new pj's, slippers, some little travel sized toothpaste and lotions. :) Then it's time for the Big Barnyard Birthday Party!

9 comments:

Audrey said...

SOOO Stinking cute!!! I wish it was for me! =P

lebanesa said...

Wow
What a lucky girl and a great grandma

Bobbie said...

What a cute idea for Katlynn, with all of her favorite animals she will be ready to travel anywhere. I hope she had a great birthday!

lebanesa said...

Strange, I was thinking about that colour last night, suddenly remember picking peeling paint off doors in the back yard when I was a little kid in Libya. Exactly that colour - it had faded from a really dark green. When you peeled it off you saw the dark green and white layers in the chips of paint.

Artists With Artitude said...

Debi, I am in awe!!!I need to take lessons from you.You are an incredible artist. I love the colors, the composition and the great concept. She is going to love it. I hope that the pary will be a great success and I am looking forward to seeing the pictures.

lebanesa said...

We are all waiting to hear about the party - and see the birthday party girl
hope all went really well and she had a happy happy time.

Debi said...

Thank you everyone for the nice compliments. I confess, I didn't invent this idea, I saw it on another blog. But, I also have to confess I realized just today that I've also done something very similar once before -- back in 1974! I covered my old travel trunk in contact paper (to match my bedroom) for my Skills section of the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Artists With Artitude said...

Debi, can you please tell me more about the Minwax's Polycrylic Protective Finish? Never heard of it...but then again, I have never heard about a lot of things either!

Lisa said...

Fantastic!!! What a wonderful idea! You could do so many different takes on this project. Thanks for sharing it with us.