Tiny artwork

First, the background:  I am, and have been for a while, getting ready for the school's art show.  The point is for the students to make a piece of art using recycled/ upcycled materials.  Each year that I have run it, I have made name tags for the kids that are participating.  I was pretty stumped as to what to make this year that wouldn't be a repeat of the other years.

Yesterday, inspiration hit while I was sorting books for the used book sale that we are running with the art show...it always makes me sad when we get books so damaged we can't do anything with them but put them in the recycle bin...or can we?  I brought one home to play with.

I made myself a little cardboard template (from an old tissue box) to fit these little wooden rectangles that I have (left over from a game I made for the boys...my very first blog post ever actually).  The wooden pieces were just sliced from a random piece of wood in the scrap pile...just be sure to use solid wood and not plywood or MDF.

I used the cardboard template as a little "window" for choosing the pictures to cut from the book (by the way...there were pages missing, ripped pages and the cover was ripped off - I would not normally cut from a book...just sayin).

 I traced around my little window, cut it out with scissors...

 ...glued it to the wooden tile with Mod Podge and then painted another layer of Mod Podge on top.

 I drilled a hole through the top and laced a piece of ribbon through, but I'm not to pleased with the result.  I had planned on putting the kids' names on the back with "2013" but now I think they would look better as pins.

 I made a couple...

 Every other page was colour, every other page was black and white...

 Aren't they terribly cute?

I'm going to let each child and volunteer choose their own, the one that "speaks to them" and write their name on after.  I'm about half way done (I need about 40) but I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be more of these in my near future because I think they would make FANTASTIC gift tags...personalized to each gift I make.  In fact, I have a few pictures set aside for someone I know already...

Hint: you can use the title of the stories (this happened to be a book of fairy tales and folk tales) for individual words or initials.

So, name tags almost done AND made entirely of recycled/leftover materials.  Yippee.  I hope the kids like them...I know the volunteers will.

Linking up with: Keep Calm Craft On at Frontier Dreams
                         Homemade Monday over at Frugal by Choice, Cheap by Necessity
                         Hop 29 at the Backyard Farming Connection