More upcycling for St Lukes

It's just past the middle of the month so time for a little more inspiration for our current challenge over at St Lukes which is to give something old a new lease of life rather than throwing it in the bin.

I did a floral anniversary card for my first "upcycled" project so for my second I wanted to go for something a bit more masculine.  I used a couple of items destined for the bin - the top off a bottle of beer and a bundle of straws that managed to get emptied out of their box into the bottom of the cupboard so weren't really any longer clean enough for drinking through!

I started with a kraft 5 inch square base card and added a stripe of black grungy texture with a kars stamp.  I cut sections of the blue striped straws and stuck them to a strip of card covered in d/s tape and tied around some black bakers twine.  I cut a bright blue ribbon shape from more card stock just a little thinner than the grunge stamping and cut it just so it overhangs the card base for a bit of interest (trimming a few mills of the card base means it still fits in the envelope) and I stuck the straws to that.

As I'm currently taking the brililant card making class by Jennifer Maguire I also combined one of the challenges from one of the lessons which is to make your own embelishment.  I stamped a black circular happy birthday sentiment onto white card, trimmed it to fit inside the bottletop and then flooded it with glossy accents.  Sentiment and embelishment in one.  I attached this half on and half off the straws again for added interest - it has made for a very thick card though so probably not one to post - more of a hand delivery.

Do check out the challenge blog over at St Lukes as the DT are sharing more inspiration for you today and as its been a bit of a testing challenge the number of entrants are low so your chances of winning the lovely ribbon bundle are pretty good and you still have over 10 days to get your creativity flowing.