Rubber Stamping: Art Kiss

Art is Love: A Collage Project by Lis Whiting

Collage is defined as:
1. An artistic composition of materials and objects pasted over a surface, often with unifying lines and color.
2. A work, such as a literary piece, composed of both borrowed and original material.
3. The art of creating such compositions.
4. An assemblage of diverse elements
5. Several things grouped together or considered as a whole

v.tr. To paste (diverse materials) over a surface, thereby creating an artistic product.

v.intr. To create such an artistic product.

I found it very interesting to find that the word collage comes from the French “coller” meaning to glue.

In our project we will use papers, rubber stamping and three-dimensional embellishments (charms, fibers, chipboard, disks) to complete our Collage Card.

Gather Your Materials:
First, gather materials that will be put together to make the collage. Start by picking out papers. Lay the papers out and look for colors that go together & interesting patterns. Choose a paper with flowers or objects that are large enough to be cut out and used by themselves. Once you have settled on some papers, add paints, embellishments, fibers, odds and ends; whatever suits your fancy. Remember you don’t have to use all of these things but they are there if you need them. (See Picture 1)

© Lis Whiting

Create your Card Base:
Choose an 8-1/2 x 11 inch piece of cardstock and fold in half (green used here). Set this aside.

Start to build your Collage:
Choose a base onto which everything else for the collage is adhered. A piece of scrapbook paper
5-1/2 x 8-1/2 inch with a sepia tone and old handwriting for the pattern is used. The sepia adds the feel of oldfashionedness.

The Corners:
Take a Queen of Hearts card [Basic Grey] and cut the outside edges off. Cut the queen from one corner to the other to create two corners. (See Picture 3)

© Lis Whiting Adhere these corners onto the card in the upper left and lower right of the card.
Choose an object from one of the papers and cut it out (the heart used here). Adhere it to the upper right side of the collage base.
Take a piece of scrapbook paper and tear the paper to make another corner. Adhere this to the lower left of the piece.

The Center of the Card:
When I need a torn piece of paper to be a certain width or height, I cut it to a little larger than the size I want. Then I can tear the paper without having to worry about it being too short or not tall enough. With this in mind, choose a piece of paper, cut it to 5-1/2 x 3 inch. Tear the paper so that the horizontal (or long) sides are torn. When tearing, be sure to get the white edge. Layer this onto another piece of paper (I used the same sepia old handwriting design except that the handwriting is gold foiled.). Tear this piece of paper being careful to allow some of it to show. (See Picture 4)

© Lis Whiting You are basically making a mat for the first piece of torn paper. Adhere this to your collage base. (The paper that I used had a flower and bird design. I used the bird design as a focal point for my collage.) (See Picture 5)

© Lis Whiting
Take one chipboard lowercase "k" [pink glitter used here – many companies now have these]. Add a brass heart charm to the center using a pop dot to lift it off the "k". Edge the "k" in Sail Boat Blue [Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dauber, Ranger]. (See Picture 10)

© Lis Whiting

Prepare your Dangles!
Add some movement to your collage by adding a dangle or two. Take two plastic disks (you can get these counters at teacher stores in various colors). Punch a hole in each one where the “top” will be. Use the
Crop-o-dile. It works really great for this! Take some jump rings (metal rings) and thread them through the holes. Voila! Dangles! (See Picture 8)

© Lis Whiting (We will use these in the next step.)

Add some Fiber to your Life!
Take two pieces of fiber (one gold and one soft variegated brown used here) about 12 inches long each and twist them loosely around each other. Tie a knot in the gold yarn and make a tassel [Filatura di Crotia, New Smoking Yarn in Gold].

* Turn your collage base over and place a piece of double stick tape on the left and right edge of the base (about 1-1/2 inches from the bottom of the base).
* Turn the base back over.
* Lay your twisted yarns over your base about 1-1/2 inches from the bottom.
* Trim the right side so that about 3/4 inches of yarns hangs over the side.
* Fold the right side over and adhere to the tape. (See Picture 7)

© Lis Whiting
* Thread the fibers through the jump rings of the dangles. Push the dangles to the right side of the base. (See Picture 9)

© Lis Whiting
* Thread a brass buckle through the fibers. Fold the fibers on the left side over and adhere to back with the tape.
* (See Picture 6)

© Lis Whiting

ART Stamped:
Take an ART rubber stamp [Hampton Art Stamps: Diffusion] and stamp several "A"'s in the upper left corner using Sapmoss Green [Nick Bantock Collection by Ranger]. (See Picture 12)

© Lis Whiting

Add some color with Acrylic Paints:
Add Edging to your base:
Edge the collage base first in Shell Pink [Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dauber, Ranger] (See Picture 13)

© Lis Whiting This will create additional interest and also completes the edges.

Add a Rainbow tail to the bird:
You will want to practice this first before you do this on your collage. Take three colors of the Daubers (Sail Boat Blue, Shell Pink and Purple Twilight) and streak them one next to the other, creating a tail and rainbow effect on the heart at the same time.
(See Picture 15)

© Lis Whiting

Adding a Few Flowers:
Take a piece of paper that has smaller designs on it [Penny Black Gold Foiled Flowers used here.]. Select a punch [small flower punch by Punch Bunch used here] and punch out a few of the designs. (See Picture 16)

© Lis Whiting
Add glue dots to the backs of the punchies and adhere them randomly to the bottom of the card. (See Picture 17)

© Lis Whiting

Let’s see what we have so far:
We have layered several papers onto our base. We have used rubber stamping, fibers, embellishments and paints to our collage. I have used some gold foiled papers in this example. You can see the foil better in this picture and where it was added. (See Picture 18)

© Lis Whiting

The Finishing Touch:
To finish this collage card:
* Adhere the collage base to your card base.
* Here is the completed card so far. (See Picture 19)

© Lis Whiting

We are going to use transparency film to unite all the pieces of our collage and make them look more unified. (Sometimes we use glazes or paints to accomplish this.)

* Take a piece of transparency (acetate) 8-1/2 x 11 and fold in half. Make sure that it has a good crease. (See Picture 20)

© Lis Whiting
* Unfold the transparency so that it lies flat. Add a piece of double stick tape (1/4 inch wide) to the crease. Half the tape should be on one side and the other half on the other side of the crease. (See Picture 21)

© Lis Whiting
* Fold the transparency CAREFULLY to about a 90 degree angle.
* Take your card and, starting at one end, place the card in the crease. (See Picture 22)

© Lis Whiting
* Fold the transparency down over the card.
* Secure the transparency by burnishing the creased edge with the tape lightly.
(See Picture 23)