Rooted to the Spot by Lesley

Hey people....hope you are enjoying the glorious sunshine we are having at the mo!
At my place, we have been doing some serious gardening. I am NOT a gardener.........and really do find it a chore. Ivy is a major problem for us.....and although i like ivy, it was getting out of control. It took the man about 4 hours to get all the ivy off one of the walls. We think it had been growing up and over for about 8 years. Thick......is not the word i would use! It was like thick matted dreadlocks.
Whilst bagging everything up to go to the tip, i came across this big lump of roots. And whilst i am not liking ivy anymore, i kept it back with a little idea in my head to use it. I think the man thought i was mad.....but he's used to me by now.
This is what it looked like..........

 

And its huge!!
And this is what it looks like now...........really difficult to photograph........

I did toy with cutting it back a bit, but it seemed a shame to make it a perfect shape, so i kept it as it was.

The big dolls face was a vintage mould i have and i used air drying clay to form her face. She was painted with Decoart Media acrylics. I took some twisted rusty wire to attach her to the roots. This was seriously hard work, and i ended up getting the drill out to make holes to get the wire through.

I used all five of different styles of the mini butterflies. And gave them all a coat of rust paste.

Next i used two different moulds to make lots of tiny faces. These were also painted with Decoart Media acrylics. I then glued the faces to the butterflies.

I used normal rusty wire to wrap around them and attach them to the roots. Had to use my pokey tool to make holes to get the wire through........the roots are unbelievably thick!

Before adding the butterflies and faces to the roots, i gave them a couple of coats of Decoart outdoor mod podge.........brilliant for sealing things against the elements.

And there you go......an outdoor hanging piece......or indeed......an indoor hanging piece!
Looking at the finished item.......i think i would have done things a bit differently. Maybe brighter colours? Certainly bigger butterflies! Maybe something i will come back to at a later date.

Thanks for reading.
L.xx

Ingredients used
Mini butterflies style one
Mini butterflies style two
Mini butterflies style three
Mini butterflies style four
Mini butterflies style five