A project from Stash - Come fly with me (My Ode to Timmy)

I hosted the first round of Short and Sweet on the CMB.  The purpose of the swap is to take ordinary items that are easy to find and inexpensive to alter.  The first round was an altered spool.

I used one of Timmy's older stacks and cut out 24 hot air balloon's from the Artiste cartridge at 7 1/2".  I cut off the the finneal and didn't use the basket cut.  I distressed all the edges with the Tonic distresser.  I inked the edges but purposefully left some of the white to show.  On each of the cuts I did a little wash of a very watered down gesso, I hand "stictched" the ones that had the various patterns on it, I stamped on the onese that were solid colors, and I sprayed them all with some Lindy's Stamp Gang spray Moon Shaddow Mist.  I folded all the pieces in half and glued together. 

The band around the middle is grunge board inked with Vintage Photo.  I cut down and adhered two pieces.together with a TH washer and brad.  I put the ball chain through the holes so it would hang down.  I added a TH faucet knob to the top as a fineal to hang the balloon.

For the basket I added gems around the top part of the spool.  I covered the spool in course texture gel.  Then I painted the whole thing black.  I dry brushed on several other colors to highlight the texture.  I took some of the inked grunge board and added washers and brads around the middle to give it more interest.  Then once I put it on the spool, I added a Fabscraps metal embellishment that I had painted in several colors to give it more interest.  I used TH screw eyes to put into the top of the spool to attach it to the balloon.  Hope my partner likes it -  it is grungerific.