Whip Up: My Surly Side

Whip Up is having a weekly craft contest called Whiplash, and this week's theme is "Your Surly Side", sponsored by Subversive Cross Stitch. (Caution: swear words at this link).

Now, I'm not always a surly person-- I think "cranky" might be a better way of describing myself. And I'm definitely opinionated. But sometimes I do get downright surly. One of the things that make me surly is other people's garbage.

I'm particularly militant about garbage. I try to produce as little of it as I can, and what I do produce goes in the can. If I see someone drop a kleenex or dump a wrapper, I say something!* It is saddening and frustrating for me to see garbage all over the place.

When it's nice out, I like to walk to work, especially now that it's light both morning and night. (Don't worry, there's a connection here!) I take a hydrocut that runs behind our building and parallel to a main street (but perpendicular to Main Street, hee hee), because it's a quieter and shorter walk. Part of my path takes me behind a local high school and into the library parking lot. It's a nice paved path that runs through a stand of trees, past an artificial pond, and usually very pretty and peaceful. Yesterday morning on my walk I saw more garbage than I did greenery, and it made me SURLY. So I started to pick things up. (Because even though I am scared of 'public' germs and wash my hands all the time, I can still pick up someone else's garbage with my bare hands, especially if I'm motivated by surliness.)

So I went to work with a pocketful of garbage and an idea: my entry for Whiplash.

Spring Thaw, Or, that snowbank is not a trash receptacle

I used cigarette cartons, a pop can, and a Starschmuck's coffee cup sleeve. Click the picture to enlarge and see the "Suburbian Gems" titling the pop can.
Check out the ghetto paperclips to hold it open for your viewing pleasure.

As I mentioned in a previous post, part of the fun of altered books is interacting with them, and you can flip through the debris, and even slip out and read the "how to quit smoking" insert from one of the cigarette cases.