Wednesday, January 19, 2011

My Erosion Bundle Project

What is an Erosion bundle?
The idea is to create an artistic bundle made from materials of your choice and then you hang it outside in a tree, bury it in the ground or just place the bundle somewhere outside to be affected by all elements of Mother Nature.  This is an experiment in decay and decomposition and to see what happens to the things you placed inside the bundle. When the bundle is taken down you get to see what Mother Nature has done to the items you included in your bundle. What you put in the bundle is up to you, but keep in mind that you are going to use the items in art projects. You can do a google search on Erosion bundles and you will find many sites with photos of what others put in their bundles and the art they created with the contents after the bundle was taken down.
I was late in getting my bundle put together and taken outside. I didn't get anything done earlier in the month, because I had been so sick. Now that I am feeling so much better I gathered lots of items for my bundle and put it together.
The bundles are usually hung outside January 1st and taken down April 15th. I may just leave mine up a tad longer due to the fact that I didn't get it hung out when it was suppose to.
I added fabric, ribbon, lace, coffee grounds that I left in the filter but put a piece of blue netting around the filter. Leaves, screws, nails, washers, bottle caps, penny, a few vintage cotton/lace doilies, used dryer sheets, red paper heart doily, tag, playing card, dress pattern, decorative napkin, metal buttons, silk flowers, handmade paper, and kraft paper, suede, white wool, leather disc, and of course some  cranberries and a small stick. I meant to include some onion skins, but they were mistakenly left out, and I didn't want to rewrap everything.   I wrapped everything in a piece of muslin and then put the package inside of a net bag that oranges had come in to hang outside. Since this was my first erosion bundle I don't know if I put in too much stuff or not. I am hoping for the best.

Below are some photos of the items I used.
Erosion bundle contents1 Erosion bundle contents 2
Erosion bundle contents 3 Erosion bundle contents 4
Erosion bundle contents 5 Erosion bundle tied up
bundle of items wrapped in muslin
 Erosion bundle hanging off porchErosion bundle hanging from tree
First I hung the net bag from a hook on the under hang of the roof, but decided it was some what protected from the elements. So, I put on my husbands winter boots, because they were handy and trudged thru the deep snow in the backyard to hang my bundle from the maple tree out back.
I can't wait to see what the contents will look like when I take my bundle down, and hopefully the squirrels will leave the bag alone.  Have you done a erosion bundle before? What did you create with the items that you had placed inside? Were there big changes from what you put in and then what was taken out ?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So, another hubby who doesn't get it. Wait until they see what we create with the help of Mother Nature! Glad you got yours going, Elaine, I was also late and may leave it out there a bit longer. This is fun, we are so easy to please!