Last month I watched Christine Middlecamp slowly build a very very impressive shadow box full of little embellished paper doilies:
Isn't it gorgeous?
Now Christine's style and my style are quite far apart. But I think inspiration can be found everywhere! Her doily project really made me reexamine all of my supplies and think about some different ways that they can be used. I also admire the fact that she does not hesitate to layer and cover things up. That's something I have trouble with. So I decided to try my hand at creating some mini collages with stuff from Prima's new release.
I spilled all my scraps and bits and chipboard and stuff onto my desk and started making tiny little collages. Take a peek at my finished canvas:
I started with a used canvas and added texture with patterned paper and gesso. I rubbed brown acrylic paint into the dried gesso to make it look aged. I'm loving the shabby chic feeling!
Check out each little collage:
At the very bottom you can see some leaves and a colorful flower poking out. That's a rub-on that I applied to vellum and then cut out.
I needed some smaller flowers, so both this flower and the one in the first photo are the center sections of larger flowers. Just pull slowly but firmly to pull the flowers apart.
That leaf is a new Prima stamp. It is so tiny and cute and I can see that I'm going to use it all the time! I colored the leaves with watercolor paint.
I gave my flower the measles! Actually I cut apart some Prima rhinestones and applied them *individually* to each petal of the flower. Yeah, that's as much work as it sounds like!
The large pink flower is actually part of a longer ribbon of flowers. But it was so easy to just cut off a single blossom! And those smaller flowers use that same rub-on on vellum trick.
The tiny rose was ripped off of a larger flower and then dyed with alcohol inks. Shell Pink is my favorite alcohol ink for dying flowers. It always turns out pretty. That pattern on the ruffle is from a new Prima stamp! Cool, right?
I painted the butterfly with watercolor paints and then added glitter glue and the rhinestones. Another really simple thing that makes a difference is that black line around the the edge of the chipboard. Simple, but makes a big impact.
Lots more rub-ons used on this collage. The butterfly, the red polka dot ruffle, the bouquet of flowers -- all rub-ons applied to vellum. I added a dash of glitter to the butterfly to really make it pop.
I colored the flower with alcohol ink and then shabbied it up with some gesso. The leaves and orange patterned circle thing are both brand new Prima stamps!
It was one of the things that I was a little sad that I had to ship it off to CHA. I wanted to hang it up right away! But I know it will be coming home soon enough!
Thanks for stopping by!
