Long time no blog....

Wow, lie got a bit hectic there for a while.  So not a whole lot of time to blog.  Have been working on a of projects though.  A while back I signed up to participate in my first EVER swap.  This swap was through Stampers Anonymous, and I have to say I'm hooked.  What a fun bunch of ladies.  I can't wait to get back everyones pages.  So here is a look at mine.

Soooo, Stampers Anonymous swap, must mean SA stamps.  All I have for SA stamps right now are Tim's.  While I love working with his stamps, I would like to expand to some of the other artist.  

I tried to think outside of the box for this, but I may have stepped on or even crushed it instead.  This page is actually made up of four layers.  I used watercolor paper as my base.  The next two pages are from on old Botany book.  I pages that I though would be interesting and inked them up very loosely.  Meaning, no full coverage, very grungy.  Each side of those two pages were inked with a different color.  Now the top page is actually a piece of tin foil.  On the inside  side of the foil (shiny side) I used alcohol inks, and created a marble effect.  On the outside side (non-shiny side) I used my paint daubers.  I used Snow Cap first, creating lines across my page, then I followed with Espresso, Lettuce, and finally Pitch Black.  I was going for a very grungy feel.  

At this point I set aside all four of those pieces.  Time to break out the stamps.  I tried to be random in the type of stamps I chose.  I stamped, inked, and cut out each piece.  While choosing my inks for stamping and the background of each image, I tried to contrast my foil, with bright vibrant colors.

Now the fun part......(actually perhaps fun is the wrong word, but a very cool effect)  Taking the two sheets of text book paper, and the piece of foil and glue them all together along the out side edge (I used my glue runner).  At this point I cut a small slit in the middle of this stack.  Then, flipping the stack over, so you are looking at the back of your last text book page, carefully poke your finger through the cut you made.  Carefully tearing a whole that will fit your largest stamped image through.  In this case it was the numbers stamp, you don't want to stick this image all the way through your tear, as we are going for a look of the art bursting out.  Once you have you tear made, flip you sandwich over and start gluing back your layers.  I glued each layer of tears separately to help give dimension.

Once all parts of the tear are glued back and your largest image is in place, I glued my sandwich down to my base piece of watercolor paper.  Now, simply place the rest of your stamped image randomly to create a neat collage.  Some of the images I used just my glue runner, while others I used foam glue squares, again to add dimension.  

At this point it's time to clean things up a bit.  I opted to frame my whole image in black ribbon. I stapled down the corners, using my Tiny Attacher.

This was a really fun project, and I hope the other participants enjoy this page as much as I enjoyed making it.