Mary Green's August Challenge

Mary Green , our teacher for the Vintage Gluebook class, issues a challenge on her blog every month, where she generously provides everyone with a collage sheet with 3 vintage images. August was no exception as you can see here.

All she asks is that you make something, the choice is yours, in which you use whole or a part of every one of the 3 images. I really shouldn't have given in to temptation (my To Do list is growing by the day!) but I was feeling sort of funny all day, due to the non-stop rain, the fact I drove all the way to the Hobbycraft shop (a round trip of 50 miles) to buy black Staz-on inkpad and guess which one was out of stock, and my dental visit yesterday. So I decided I needed a treat.

This is my contribution for her challenge, with the woman, the label and the words Je aime and La femme the required elements. I added vintage music, a vintage backing sheet from an old book and the vintage text which reads: the young wife could not avoid reflecting upon the situation in which she was placed. The background was a previously painted blue page in a watercolour sketchbook.

No need of many words page

The New Year is getting off to a good start as I have almost cleared my To Do list in a frenzy of arting. If you had peeked in my studio you might have spotted the steam coming from the top of my head!

The first piece I made was in response to Mary Green's monthly challenge, in which she gifts us a PDF file with 3 vintage images. All she asks in return is that you make a piece of work that includes all 3 of the images (or details of them). You can see this month's sheet here. Download it and play!

I used a page from a French vintage dictionary and used this as my background. To that I added the building image (also true vintage) of which I tore the edges to blend it in with the dictionary page. The ledger (image from Mary) was torn up and the edges were antiqued with a Distress Inkpad and the couple (image from Mary) were cut out from their background and applied to the one I had created. Finally I added the roses (the 3rd image from Mary) as shown.

Vintage text was found and glued on as well as a vintage postage stamp.

I'm also participating in Mary's Green Paper Collage Club this year (as you can see in the right-hand side bar of this blog) where we're receiving vintage images and tutorials from Mary twice a month. You can sign up per month or go wild and subscribe for the whole of 2011. Guess what I did!

Mary's December Challenge

The previous two posts were all about the snow and might lead you to believe I'm not working! Not true! Or rather not entirely true. Yes, a lot of time has been spend outside but I have also beaded more than 100 blocks (over half way!) and I have even managed to produce a spread in my Vintage Gluebook. This is partly in response to the December challenge on Mary's blog and partly also in response to her Collage Basics classes.

Her challenge works as follows. She gifts us a collage sheet of 3 images on her blog and we have to use all three to make something. What is up to us and it was my choice to use my gluebook. It only has room for one more spread now and it's satisfyingly fat! I used Mary's images (some several times and in different sizes) and only added a vintage music sheet to the composition.

What is beauty?

First of all my apologies for the continuing silence here on this blog! I managed to download my Collage Coterie lesson at lunchtime yesterday but last night I simply could not get this blog to upload any pictures and in the end I gave up, specially as the weather outside was gorgeous and the sun beckoned!

It seems to be back to what passes as normal here in dial-up country so I will be catching up on art over the coming days.

First of all I made another spread in my Vintage Gluebook in response from a challenge issued by our teacher Mary Green on her blog. She has provided us with 3 vintage images and we have to use them all (or part of all) in whatever project we like. My Vintage Gluebook is almost full (only 2 more spreads to go!) and you can see how I have used the 3 images. Of course, Mary's images have been printed out by me, so are not real vintage. The background behind the actress has been made by me from a vintage Holy Card and printed out, but the image of the theatre as well as the music and text are true vintage pieces although the red round embellishments are thoroughly modern. I've also added chalk colouring to the lady.

I found the vintage quotation while searching through my box of vintage materials and it seemed to suit this spread so well!

Count on Me Spread

The teacher for our marvelous Vintage Gluebook Class, Mary Green, has issued another challenge on her blog. She has once more provided us with 3 beautiful vintage images and we have to use all 3 or at least part of all 3 in our project. Of course, I could not resist!

And here is my spread in which I have also used various images from downloads available in Mary's e-store as well as some vintage text and music from my own supplies. The lady in question is Lady Randolph Churchill although I have taken the liberty of re-christening her for the occasion using text from the cheque that Mary provided. Part of that also found its way onto the left-hand spread. The cheque also provided inspiration for my choice of musical background. "Count on Me" seemed appropriate!

Quiet Places Spread

This spread was made in response to a challenge set by our Vintage Gluebook Class teacher Mary Green on her blog. She has given everyone a free sheet with 3 lovely vintage images, a letter, an actress and flowers and has asked us to come up with a piece of art such as ATC, postcard or spread that uses all 3 of these images.

As I still need to add spreads in my Moleskine Journal in which I put all the spreads I'm making for the class I choose to made a spread and also added some other wonderful images I obtained from Mary. One is a beautiful vintage Calendar with Bible Quotes that provided the cottage image seen on the right and the words with the title of this spread (Quiet Pages) is also from this download. The other is the lovely blue flowers on the left hand page which come from her equally gorgeous Journal Pages download.

The backgrounds on the left and right, as well as the French text and the german text snippet on the left are all true vintage from my own supplies. I have also replaced the postage stamp from the letter on Mary's challenge sheet with an actual green stamp as this toned in better with the spread than the original red.