Trash to Treasure Challenge!

My mini buddies, Marilyn and Louise, are both working on "secret" projects, so we had to come up with something different for our usual Wednesday afternoon virtual meeting. Marilyn had come across a challenge for the members of the Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton (hereafter referred to as MEE), and challenged us to follow this. They are doing a Trash to Treasure challenge, (hereafter referred to as T2T) due April 6, and although we aren't members of that club (they're a couple of thousand kilometres away to the west....), we do know a number of the members from Camp MiniHaHa and also from personal and very pleasant visits while out west visiting my kids, one of whom lives in Edmonton, and a visit to one of my buddies years ago in Prince Edward Island. Louise is keeping her project secret for now, but I suspect it will include flamingos....

A list of 35 items, and the quantities to be used, was provided by Maureen at St. Albert Minis (http://stalbertmini.blogspot.com/2021/03/hello-again-good-to-be-back.html ), and participants have to use at least 25 of them; we can add one item from our stash, of our choice. 

We are allowed four bottle caps; one appears here, in the form of the elliptical silver-grey base for my eventual table. We were allowed 10 beads, and five of them are in use here; the round beeswax candles, the tall vase, and the silver box. We were allowed a 2 x 2" (5 x 5 cm)square of foil; please see the hammered "silver" bowl. We were allowed one mirror, no larger than 2" (5 cm), and I had one in my stash. It has a frame of medium brown card stock, to look like a mid-century Scandinavian-inspired wall mirror. The two books created so far are scraps of foam core, one covered in egg carton cardboard (we were allowed an egg carton), and a scrap of the allowed card stock. We were also allowed three thumb or map tacks, and they form my "crystal" candlesticks  here.

Four cotton swabs were also allowed; the cotton buds of 2 1/2 of them form the mamillaria cactus, in one of the toothpaste tube caps we can use. The "soil" base is a piece of egg carton, and the actual soil is tea leaf dust, also allowed by the challenge. The senecio (Old Man Cactus) is made from a piece of chenille stick and bits of one of the 3 cotton balls in the challenge, along with the other toothpaste tube cap, and the tall cactus is made from actual pipe cleaners. The planter for this tall cactus is the bottle top from one of my father's Old English Leather after-shave bottles, which I have probably had for more than 25 years! It is real wood and the perfect colour for my "vision".

You can find the list of 35 items on Maureen's blog, St. Albert Minis ( http://stalbertmini.blogspot.com/2021/03/hello-again-good-to-be-back.html ). I'm having fun coming up with odd things I can make with unused items in my stash, and will publish a list when the project is done with how much I did manage to use in my setting. I'm not revealing what that will be quite yet, as I have to make sure I have everything I would like to have, on hand. My item from my stash, at this point, is foam core, of which I have a number off  small off-cuts.

We can use whatever colouring materials we like, and also aren't restricted as to glues. I've used mostly craft paint so far, but who knows what else I'll come up with.