"Oh, so lonely!" Collage

Click on the pict to get a larger view to see the details.

My dh actually liked these! Will wonders never cease? Anyway, I did these collages yesterday for the Altered Art Obsessions Collage Swap. I have two swap partners. I figure that it would be as easy for me to do two instead of one. So, I made four! The bottom one is the one that I am keeping.

They are all slightly different but about 5x7". The swap is for a collage at least 4x4. I keep thinking fat book when I think 4x4 and I can't do a really good collage with that size. The smallest I like to work is postcard size. Yeah, I do inchies and ATCs, but that is different.

The background is paper fabric that I got from Judy Colpack and from the Beryl Taylor book. I used a zigzag stitch to border the background. The mesh you see is painted embroidery grid. You can find that at any fabric store. It is more like thin fabric. Don't buy the thick plastic stuff or it will be hard to attach to your piece. I used a straight stitch to attach the mesh to the background. The copper sheet metal I used was still too shiny, I used some black paint and interference oxide green to tarnish it a little. I used a hand drill - Fiskars- to make a hole in the middle of the sheet metal so I could cut an "X" and then use a round nose pliers to roll the edges up to create a window. Used some copper wire to attach the copper head bead to the copper sheet window. Hint: Use your pliers and make a little bend in the wire where the bead sits so the bead will not slide to the bottom of your window. The green/black embossed foil background behind the bead is from the yesterday as well. You can find out how I did it in a post or two below this one named "metal embossing". I did not use the metal embossing sheet the way I planned to but it worked out anyway. The metal embossed part looks really good behind the copper head bead. I used a little double sided tape to attach the embossed piece to the mesh.

I used my crop-a-dile to make two holes on either side of the copper sheet. I then used an awl to pierce through the background. I used two brads to attach the copper sheet to the collage. I also used my crop-a-dile to make two holes at the top and attach the XL eyelets so that you can use wire, string, or fibers to hang the collage. Done.

Interesting, I find that I am using less and less commercial images now - less collage sheets. Maybe it is a phase. Maybe I am becoming more comfortable in creating with more raw materials. I blame the Yahoo group, Raw Art, for this! I joined that group and have been more conscious of the materials I use. It is actually a great group. I have done some great swaps in that group.

Comments welcome.