I think I might have officially unleashed my inner collage artist!

Today concludes our 3 part series on unleashed collaging with Traci Bautista here at Naughty Secretary Club. We started with a pair of collaged earrings, sandwiched in a framed piece of collage art and are wrapping things up with a chunky collage necklace & yet another pair of ear bobs. Can you really have too many pairs of earrings?

After several days of having collage party USA my once clean desk was covered with various painted papers, art supplies, and by this time Traci and I had started to get into the jewelry supplies to see about truly meshing our respective arts.

If you recall on yesterday’s post the collage technique I utilized created two sheets of hot pink, orange and yellow paper. I used one sheet to create my framed key art, but that leaves me with another back up sheet to collage with. Traci and I had been playing around with making our own stamps out of fun foam, using sequin waste as a stencil and had even busted out the textured wall paper – but I needed more kitsch. Something was missing for me. WARNING: More pictures in jammies and sans makeup coming…

This is when Traci and I started to go through my drawers of beads and baubles looking for inspiration. Traci headed straight for my giant bucket of vintage plastic flowers that I often incorporate into my jewelry and started getting stamping crazy.

I on the other hand headed over to my stash of vintage cupcake toppers and started thinking deep stamping thoughts. Eventually a little menagerie of plastic farm animals caught my eye. I noticed the design was outlined in a raised design that would work perfect for stamps.

I broke off the cupcake toppers stand, stuck him to a piece of fun foam, covered him in black paint and got my stamp on. The results were cute as they could be! Given some stamps came out better than others and if I had it to do over I would mix up the animals and make it more random, but it was my first time stamping with a baked good accessory give a girl a break. I thought it came out with a nice Warhol like feel.

I was particularly smitten on the little squirrel print, with Mr. Piggly Wiggly coming in a close second. I thought the little prints were just too cute to leave as is, so I needed to take them to the next jewelry making level. Hobby Lobby just so happened to have these tiny baroque picture frame Christmas ornaments on 50% sale that called out me to be used as pendants. I traced out the perfect squirrel and cut him out with my hipster Fiskars skull scissors that everyone tries to steal from me.

Next step remove the string to hang the ornament on your tree and substitute with chunky black plastic chain. I had my good friend Cory Ryan model for me yet again and I think she looks rather dashing in her new groovy squirrel necklace.

But wait there’s more….. Remember I said there was another pair of earrings that I whipped up? Did you think I was lying? Using some random scrapbook paper, collaged fabric that Traci had brought along and Decopatch tissue I whipped up a small sheet of collage

I had some left over Hambly Raffle Leaf Overlay from my framed key art collage that just so happened to match my project perfectly! See you don’t have to be a scrap booker to use all the toys!

Once my Collage Pauge dried on my art I cut out 4 circles. I cut out 2 larger circles from the overlay and using glue sandwiched the overlay in-between the two collaged circles. Once all the glue had dried I used my Dremel to drill a hole in each and then busted out the jewelry findings to make my collage wearable. Again, Cory Ryan ladies and gentlemen….

After a weekend crafting with Traci I feel recharged in the creativity department. Sometimes stepping outside of your crafting comfort zone is just what you need to rev your engines. I even finally busted out my copy of Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith which I had been threatening to start for ages. Look at me go stenciling sequin waste onto the “Fill this page with circles” tutorial! I think I might have officially unleashed my inner collage artist!