DIY: How to Recycle an Old Globe!

Happy New Year's Eve! If you are a TOTAL homebody/crafty nerd like me, than that means your evening is much like mine: you are in your pj's, enjoying a cup of hot cocoa (of whatever else pleases ya, I'm not here to judge) and you are writing up your New Years Craft-solutions, er Craft-utions (that's my best effort to combine craft and resolutions, in case you didn't catch my drift). One thing that WON'T be on my list for 2018 is a Painted Globe...as I just narrowly completed it today!

And I was so excited, I had to take it in to school and add it to my It's a Small World area in the art room!

If you follow me on IG, then you've been hangin' with me on this journey to turn this trashed globe into treasure. I found it in the trash at school and had to dig it out immediately. It wasn't until I had it back in my art room and added to my collection of globes (why I have so many, I have no idea...it's just that I cannot seem to let them be thrown away!) that I noticed why it had been trashed: it was busted right across the equator. 

 I took it home and decided to fix it with a large plaster gauze strip...which made it quite unsightly. During my repair stage, I noticed that this globe was pretty dated...and poorly made from plastic. With that in mind, I didn't have much of a problem giving this blog the reboot. I'm a lover of all things vintage and it burns my eyeballs when I see folks "flipping" vintage (i.e. turning treasure into trash, says me). However, this bad boy wasn't very old...just old enough to have countries with incorrect names and a big honkin' crack right through the middle. 

Here you can see my plaster strip repair job. I done tole you it wasn't pretty.

If you've been on pinterest for a hot minute than you know that painted globes are pretty hip. Maybe even past tense hip. But I don't care. After a little bit of searching for ideas, I was so inspired, I decided to paint my globe. I used the same wall paint as I had for the walls at school because 1. I still have a ton; 2. I wanted it to match, color-wise; 3. It was more opaque than any other paint I could find.

I decided to paint each of the seven continents and give each a pattern.

I used the planters I painted a while back as my inspiration. I just picked patterns at random. 

 I love patterns. Like, LOVE-love. Tis the reason you'll rarely find me in a solid color. And if you do, it's paired with a buncha other solid colors thus creating...A PATTERN. 

This was such a fun winter break project for me. I've managed to knock out a couple...but sitting in my craft room and painting is my favorite way to end my day. I've got mountains of pattern-y painting projects just waiting for me in that messy space.

 Texture is also my BFF. I suppose I could have used paint pens to create the patterns on this globe...but I don't know that they would have given me all this thick-ish texture.

 You can kind of see my layers of paint in the photo below.

 Now I do have a "normal" globe in my art room as well...for when we need to examine places other than just continents. But I think this will be a fun addition.

  Brrr! My heat cut off when I was working a little in my art room today and it felt like Antartica! Or at least that's what 62 degrees feels like to me. 

  What projects were you working on this winter break? 

  Thanks for letting me share mine!

We head back this Wednesday for a coupla days of PD and the kids return on Friday. I'm excited to see their happy little faces! Happy New Year, y'all!