Coffee Stirrer Art

A few weeks ago, when browsing through all the awesome and creative ideas on Pinterest, I came across a pin that showed how to make cool art pieces with coffee stirrers. Some crafts you put on your internal to-do list, and others you simply HAVE to create at that exact moment.  This particular one was the latter of the two. So, I went to Walmart and got my supplies. I altered the directions and supplies a bit to meet my needs.  For instance, I bought two 11x13 wooden frames, cheap ones. I also bought some skinny craft sticks (not rounded edges) that look like coffee stirrers and some cheap paint in the colors I envisioned for my art pieces.

This art project is very simple, but a bit time-consuming.  First, I painted the frames black, let them dry, and used one of those green scrubby dish things (what are they called?) to distress them.

I simply painted the sticks and glued them in different lengths directly onto the glass of the frames. I used wire cutters to easily cut the sticks. I also tended to make a few of the sticks a bit "messy" because I wanted a distressed look.  I dabbed or smeared other colors onto a few of the sticks.  You could have a cleaner look by not doing this.

You may wish to paint the glass black or another color before gluing the sticks on since tiny spots of the glass may show a bit when you are finished.  We have noticed that when light shines on the art, it tends to reflect off of the glass in some spots.  It looks like a mirror is behind the sticks.  I don't mind it since it doesn't happen often, but perhaps if I retraced my steps I would paint the glass black so it wouldn't show at all.

The picture above is of the very first one I completed.  I quickly realized I wanted more than one and that I wanted the next one to be very similar, but a tad different in some way.  I decided to use all of the same colors for the sticks except for the green. I chose a different accent color for the second piece - blue. The picture at the top of this post shows both of them, but I'm not done yet.  I am working on another, this time with a reddish accent color. We'll see how three of them look together above our fireplace, but I'm thinking I may end up with four of them.

**Note: The pictures here are not nearly large enough and you really can't see the detail.  Sorry, getting used to Blogger and having some issues!**

Updated 11/17 - just hung the reddish one