Vintage Collage Birthday Card

I made this card for my dear friend Susan's birthday. I am also entering it in the Catered Crop Follow the Recipe Challenge. This is another newly discovered challenge blog for me and my first submission. The idea of this challenge is that the winner of the previous challenge provides the "recipe" for the next challenge (theme, papers, tools, etc.) You can choose any ingredient or ingredients from the recipe and add your own "spice" to make a new creation. Looking at the inspiration recipe and mine, I may have used more of the inspiration ingredients than I realized and not so much of my own spices, but I still am very happy with how this card turned out. It was a lot of fun to make.

Here is my recipe:

Colors: Sepia, Blues, Browns, Gold

Papers: Design paper (My Mind's Eye - I think :); dictionary page; shipping tag; scraps

Stamps: harlequin, sentiment, scroll (on twill tape)

Color Mediums: Distress Ink (Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain, Antique Linen), homemade glimmer spray (distress ink mixed with PearlEx powder and water)

Embellishments: Twill tape, lace, twine, buttons, beads, jewelry tag, thread, vintage clipart

Techniques: Tea dye, distress, sewing

Tools: die cuts, punches

Themes: Vintage, bird, birdcage, birthday

A few notes:

I soaked the gingham background paper in tea to give it an aged look. It was very bright before I did that.

The blue flower is made using the Martha Stewart Hydrangea punch. I punched it twice, pressed on the petals with a stylus to curl them and stacked the six pieces together to make the flower. I used a gold seed bead for the center.

The white flower is made from crepe paper. I colored it with a homemade glitter spray, then die cut the petals with a Nestabilities die. I layered them with regular white glue and puffed up the layers. I added three gold seed beads for the center. I really enjoyed working with the crepe paper. it's thin so you can manipulate it, but not as delicate as tissue paper. I got a big roll of white for less than a dollar and I can color it with inks or whatever to get the color I want. Pretty good buy.

The bird and birdcage images are from the awesome Graphics Fairy blog. If you like vintage images you should check it out. It has tons of cool stuff for free.

Thanks for looking!

We Will Never Forget

This is my little tribute to today's somber anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years. This was not only a horrible day for my beloved country, but for the whole world as everyone mourned along with us.

I started this little collage just because I wanted to do it. I wanted to do something to honor the day and I also wanted to try something new. I have never made anything like this before. I have been wanting to try some mixed media collage and thought this would be something I could practice on. I didn't intend to submit it for any challenges or anything. But shortly after I started this project yesterday, Hels Sheridan, who publishes the Ink on My Fingers blog, posted her Sunday Stamper challenge. The theme this week is The Time to Remember commemorating the 9/11 attacks. So I have decided to submit it for that challenge.

I just recently discovered Hels' blog. She is not only a talented artist, this lady is a hoot! Even if you aren't particularly into her artistic style, you should check out her blog. She never fails to make me laugh. I think she would be a delightful person to know.

I started my collage by making the background. First I tore some random pieces of paper in shades of red, blue and tan and glued them onto a piece of scrap paper with Mod Podge. After that dried, I went over the whole piece with Walnut Stain Distress Ink to get rid of the white edges of the paper and tone down the colors a bit. Then I stamped the clock and script randomly on cream color tissue paper using brown StazOn, tore it into pieces and glued them over the paper, again using Mod Podge. It wrinkled a bit and some of the distress ink showed through, which I decided I liked. After the background piece dried, I glued it to a 6x6 piece of chipboard and trimmed it to fit. I then brushed metallic antique gold acrylic paint around the edges and in random strokes across the piece.

I downloaded the "We the People" and the vintage lady graphics from Flickr (Creative Commons License). I hand-stitched the lady onto a piece of vintage dictionary paper with the definition for "free" at the top. I created the Bible verse on the computer, tore it out and inked it with Vintage Photo and Fired Brick Distress Inks. I made the rosette and added the button, twine, stick pin and star charm. I stamped "Remember 9-11-01 Forever" using Fired Brick Distress Ink, then finished it off with an old postage stamp (it says "Give me liberty or give me death.") and three copper upholstery tack brads. I'm not sure about the brads, but it looked like it needed some dimension on that side and I couldn't find anything else to put there. I may change that part later if I find something more appropriate.

As I mentioned above, this is my first mixed media collage and I loved making it as much as I thought I would. I know I still have a lot to learn, but it turned out even better than I had hoped it would. I got a little scared when I was making the torn paper background. It looked pretty bad in it's first stages, but I kept going and it turned out great. I'm definitely going to do more of that and more mixed media art.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies

Stamps: Clock (Rosebud); Script (Club Scrap); Numbers (Technique Tuesday); Remember and Forever (Unknown)

Ink: Walnut Stain, Vintage Photo and Fired Brick Distress Ink (Tim Holtz - Ranger); Saddle Brown (StazOn); Red Pepper Alcohol Ink on the button (Ranger)

Paper: Scraps from my stash and tissue paper

Other: Vintage images (Flickr), vintage postage stamp, Metallic Antique Gold acrylic paint (Folk Art); stick pin; star charm; button; twine; upholstery tack brads (Making Memories)