Today I did a collage. Finished project:

I was cutting up magazines on Saturday, and somehow have a subscription to Parents magazine with no kids (and not pregnant yet) so a lot of the pictures I was drawn to are ones that made me think of what I want my life to be like in a few years. The seemingly-errant word “mark” is there to represent my husband (that’s his name), and I see myself as the woman with the baby. I love the peanut butter and jelly jars and the sandwich that are, to a child, a huge part of life. The fairy wand and butterfly represent imagination, the crayons and books are more of the real life aspects of childhood… but they too can represent imagination, can’t they?

The background is something I made a few years ago. I have three other painted papers of different colors, also made at the same time. I took a photo of the work in progress since I knew I’d be covering up most of it. The technique is very simple. Dip a cotton ball in paint. Blot it a bit on scrap paper, then dot paint on paper. I used… I think just two colors of paint, though the pink was possibly a mix of red and white. I think I used Crayola washable paint, but I’m not positive.

I arranged the pictures first, then glued them on with mod podge and a sponge brush, and then added the words in. I have the rest of the magazine pages, which would have been thrown out (or recycled), so my desk wouldn’t get messy. I don’t have newsprint to use, and Goddess Leonie gave me the idea of using magazines as a paint palette, and I knew they would work as well for this. My work space, which is my desk at work on my lunch break (notice my snazzy homemade “rolodex” in front of the phone):