Plastic Fantastic

Long before I got into Zentangle I was working with Friendly Plastic. I mainly used it for creating unique toppers for my little magnetic tiles.One of the good things about this medium is that you can reuse/remelt every little scrap & I'm talking as small as 2mm here, although I could be accused of being obsessive where this is concerned!

An ultra simple tile topper

There are 2 melting techniques used for different types of work: using a heat tool; or melting over hot water. It takes a little patience getting used to handling this stuff in its' molten state & there's the opportunity to do a good job of burning or scalding your fingers if you're not careful, but once you've got the hang of it, it's fine.
Due to my aforementioned obsession with using every scrap, I collected the little off-cuts in a jar which I eventually filled of course. What now? I thought........

My friend Loo helping me to find shapes at Banff Castle

I tipped some of the scraps out onto my workbench & began to really examine them with my creative 'outside the box' head on. Like seeing faces & shapes in the clouds, I began to see things in my scraps! The very first thing I found was this little bird (above). Even I was gob-smacked by the finished result & thought it deserved a Latin name, so I gave it one.
The rules of this game are that I can't amend the scrap by cutting or remelting parts of it , I can only accessorise it with things like beads for eyes, feathers, drawn on legs etc. Sometimes a shape shouts out at me, other times when I'm certain it has to be something, I have to pick it up & turn it in all directions until it becomes clear to me.If I get stuck I rope my fellow crafty friends to help out with a fresh pair of eyes!

The sad little twisted scrap 'Before'

The masterpiece of this method has to be my 'Great Winged Fire Ant'. This little piece of twisted & already remelted & rejected plastic had been on the workbench along with some other scraps for weeks. It was one of those shapes that was so weird I just wouldn't be beaten by it. I picked it up for the 100th time & turned it round..........before my very eyes it turned into an ant perched on a stick!!
Now here's one of the times when working alone is a shame.I was doing a celebration dance around the workroom & the only one I had to show it to was my wee Westie, who to be honest, was visibly underwhelmed.

 Tangled wings, a tail & antennae

The Final Fellow!