Fabulous & Fun Fridays - How To Recycle a Magazine into Art Tutorial

I have been totally swamped with custom work but I took a break from everything to put together this fun little tutorial for all of you.  This is a great way to recycle your old magazines and turn them into art for your wall, for a picture frame, for a kids room or for grandmas room, the possibilities are endless really!

What you will make:

(yours can be any image you like, this is just what I chose to do but really you can do anything you want ie hearts, cat, dog, trees, flower, sun etc. etc. like I said the possibilities are endless!)

What you will need:

• Exacto Knife
• Double sided tape or Glue
• Magazine cut into thin strips
• 1 piece of cardboard 
• 1 piece of white poster board
• Pencil

Step 1

Cut thin strips out of a magazine of your choice.  Don't cheat and cut the strips wider as it will not look as good when the whole thing is finished, been there, done that.  I look through the magazine and pull out the most colorful pages I can find and then cut them into strips instead of just cutting at random.  However that is all up to the individual, some might prefer the look of just black and white words over color, its all a matter of preference.  

Step 2

Using a piece of poster board that has 1 glossy side and the other side is dull you can draw your image out on the dull side of the poster board.  Remember that the glossy side is going to be up so whatever your draw is going to be backwards when it is finished, this is important if you are going to create words in your image.  Also keep in mind that the simpler your image is, the easier it is going to be to cut out.  The hardest part about this whole project is cutting out the image and having a nice smooth clean cut.  The exacto knife has a tendency to leave a kind of jagged edge if you are not really really careful.   If there is too much detail within the image then this project will not work because you will not see it.  This image is the most detailed one I have ever done and I had to glue pieces such as the elephants ear and eye back on after the fact.  These are things to consider when deciding the image you are going to use, the simpler the better!

Step 3

Using your exacto knife, cut the image that you drew onto the poster board out.  

Step 4

The easiest way I have found to attach your magazine strips to the cardboard is by using double sided tape.  You can stick the double sided tape across the cardboard in strips and then once you have covered the whole piece, remove the backing off the tape as you apply the strips of magazine randomly across the cardboard. 

Step 5

Using either glue or double sided tape you can attach your poster board with your image already cut out of it to the cardboard with the magazine strips stuck to it.  Remember that the glossy side will be up!

If you have any detail pieces from your image they can now be applied in the correct areas, such as my elephants ear and eye below.

Step 6

Cut the excess cardboard and magazine strips around your poster board off and you will be left with your finished art piece that you can put into a frame which is how it looks the nicest, I just didn't have a frame on hand to put mine in that I made for this tutorial today.  A nice white frame with a white matting looks very sharp for this project.

Happy Recycling!!! :)