Mini Abstract Sculptures From Aluminium Blinds - an Experiment

Thea
by Thea
2 Materials
$1
20 Minutes
Easy

Old aluminium blinds are incredibly versatile because they are light weight, bendable and rust proof. They also keep their structure better than card stock. These little abstract sculptures were experiments to explore what can be done with them. Granted, I'm not going to win an international art prize with them but they will look interesting as dinner table centre pieces.

Blinds are definitely not cat proof as evidenced by the one laying in our garage gathering even more dust than they are infamous for. I’m not sure if you get thicker ones but this one was definitely on the flimsy side.

Cut the slats loose


The slats are connected with chord. I cut wherever I could see chord and then gently slid the slats out without bending them. They are quite unforgiving in this regard.

Wash and spray paint them if you want


I decided to leave my slats as they were. You can however give them a base coat and then spray them with whatever works for metal.

Cut, bend and shape them


Start experimenting. They are easily cut with kitchen scissors. I made little slits as can be seen above. This helps to hold them in place. They can also be double bent and bent at an angle.


They don’t hold bigger, rounded rolled shapes very well and revert back to their original form. You can roll them around say, a pencil, to get a curl but you don’t get much control as to how large the curl will be.


You can also glue them. I used a glue gun. Watch out though, they get hot so it is advisable to wear gloves.

You can fold them on the diagonal

What do you think? They do look a lot like cardboard strips but I think they hold their structure better and are more durable. This warrants further investigation.


Resources for this project:
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Comments
Join the conversation
Next