Is This Collage?

I haven't done very much collage, I just have trouble figuring out what should go together. So here is my attempt which has enough green on it for the Created Byhand Challenge. This is an 8 X 10 artist canvas board that I glopped gesso on and made some texture marks with a plastic spoon. When that was dry I scribbled Reeves water soluble wax pastels on and blended with a wet brush. The next step was colouring on the still wet canvas with Portfolio water soluble oil pastels, rubbed around with my finger then blended with a dry brush. I let that dry, then rubber stamped a couple of large background stamps, one music and the other script.
While this was drying I tried a Cuttlebug paint technique I read about somewhere on the internet. I put blobs and drizzles of paint on a piece of watercolour paper, placed another piece of watercolour paper over this and ran it through the Cuttlebug. I got 2 quite nice papers, but next time I think I'll just use a roller instead of the Cuttlebug, I don't like the risk of getting paint in my machine. When the paper was dry, I used my new Cuttlebug embossing folder from the Heritage set that I just got from Cherish The Thought yesterday. I sponged Walnut Stain Distress ink on the embossed areas to bring out the texture. My quote from Quietfire Design is stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa ink on a digital background I had leftover from the Tea Time ATCs. This was cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities Scalloped Oval and layered over a brown cardstock cut with the largest die from the Scalloped Oval set. The chipboard rectangles are cut with the Sizzix ATC die, dipped in coffee and the edges rolled until I got a nice distress look. They are stamped with some Michael's 79 cent stamps with Rich Cocoa ink and edged with Walnut Stain Distress ink. The white flower thingy is the back part of a button from Ruby Dog's Art House with a circle punched from scraps from the embossed painted paper and a brown half pearl in the centre.

Greeting Card Teapot

Greeting Card Teapot
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

My all time favourite die cut project so far is a journal page I posted on July 1 and it would fit the Byhand Challenge for this week of Looking In, Looking Out or die cuts but I thought I should actually create a new project for the challenge. This card for the Created Byhand challenge uses the Cuttlebug Blooming Bouquet Embossing Plus folder for the main background and I rubber stamped the Quietfire quote with Versafine Vintage Sepia on white cardstock before running it though the Cuttlebug Embossing Plus folder. This is layered over brown cardstock then mounted on an ivory 5 X 6.5 in. card black. The teacup is stamped with Memento Rose Bud on a separate piece of white cardstock and cut with the Nestabillities classic scalloped oval and the edge rubbed with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. This is mounted with foam dots and a brown sheer ribbon bow is glued near the top.

Blue Egg Blues

Blue Egg Blues
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

Some blue ATCs for a swap. A photo of a bird egg, some cut with a Nestabilities die, rubber stamp word and some embossed with a Tim Holtz Sissex embossing folder.

April 10, 2010 Greeting Card

April 10, 2010 Greeting Card
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This is the card I made on Sat. at Cherish The Thought. It uses the Nestabilities Poinsettia die, Crafts Too Swiss Dots embossing folder and Fiscars Kimberly Polson "Words and Whimsy" clear stamps.

March ATCs For ATC Vancouver Swap

Sunday Mar. 21 is the regular swap, so I've been creating as fast as I can to get enough ready. One of the themes this month is apples and I've used a couple of my apple photos, a Crafts Too Leafy Tree Embossing Folder. Some are coloured on the debossed side with Pitt artists pens. Some of the others are coloured with pigment inks on the embossed side. I used various Spellbinders dies to cut the apple image and a piece to layer under some of them. Three of the apple images are mounted with pop dots.

Spellbinders Open House

On Feb 20th Jessie had a Spellbinders open house at Cherish The Thought and we made 4 cards using different Nestabilities and techniques. These are the cards I made.

Now this was a busy weekend because on Friday the 19th I went to Vancouver to check out the Olympic activities and on Sunday the 21st I went to the monthly ATC swap which is usually held at the Grind. Because of parking restrictions we met at Collage Collage and Sat night after being at the open house I got a message that Penellope had made an ATC book with pockets as a gift for the store owner, and could we contribute an ATC. So Sunday morning I made the geranium ATCs using my photo and the seed packet card technique, I really liked how the cards turned out and the ATCs turned out pretty good too.

Greeting Card-Baby

Greeting Card-Baby
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

Here is the Saturday card project from Cherish The Thought. I started with a Cuttlebug embossing folder to emboss the background layer then rubber stamped the edging, little bird and "Special Delivery" postal cancellation. The vintage carriage is stamped on cream cardstock cut with a scalloped circle Nestabilities Die. The background layer is edged with Memento Rich Cocoa ink. The lace and a ribbon is added with double sided tape and the cream piece is glued on with foam dots. Now came the frame for the carriage, this was done with 2 Nestabillities dies, the scalloped circle and the inverted scallop circle. We first placed the inverted scallop circle on a magnetic sheet, then lined up the points of the scallop circle with the points of the inverted scallop die. This was cut with the Big Shot and I got this cute little bubble frame which was edged with the Memento ink then glued to the cream circle.