ATC #1214 Moments in Love: Marie and Louis

Title: Moments in Love: Marie and Louis
Size: 2.5″ x 3.5″
Status: Swapped

After my first attempt at a collage for the Valentine ATC Swap went awry I found myself having to sit down and make a second one. I looked at my partner’s profile and she really likes vintage so when I went to make this one I tried to find an older element to feature and lo, I discovered this Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI political cartoon! Ye olde burn! It was part of a rather large article in Smithsonian magazine that was published when the movie came out a few years back, so expect at least one more Marie Antoinette ATC in the as yet undetermined future. The glitter is glitter scrapbooking paper once again and the background is a Martha Stuart paint chip cut down to size, the colors are actually much nicer in real life, my scanner seems to not be a fan of pink. It’s a rather simple ATC, but I think it’s cute, and I definitely hope my swap partner enjoys it!

~ Brigitte

ATC #1213 In the Forest in my Head

Title: In the Forest in my Head
Size: 2.5″ x 3.5″
Status: Available

Strange to say, but this collage is oddly personal, so much so that I’m not really sure how to go into it. So much for vagaries though, I will say this, I believe the birds are Darwin’s finches. By that I mean his actual finches, though I’ve had the birds cut out for so long I can’t remember anymore. I had this phase I went through where I hated having full pages torn out for one small photo, so I cut a bunch of things out. Unfortunately now that means I have bundles of things that I can’t properly identify, which irritates me. Oops!

Regardless, when ever I see birds like this I think about my brief stint doing taxidermy for the Dayton Museum of Natural History. This kind of taxidermy was exactly that I did, helping my aunt go through the donations (because apparently when people find dead animals a lot of times they give them to natural history museums?), stuffing them, tagging them, and then adding them to the archives. I have surprisingly fond memories of working on these birds and going into the shockingly cold specimen room, which I fell asleep in once (a story for another time), and adding my work to the drawers. My aunt told me that almost no one ever saw the specimen room, but that researchers would use it to study things like evolution and migration. I always got the feeling I was doing something really important there and, of course, this is where my love of taxidermy comes from.

What a long story! If you want to add this ATC to your collection it is available, just drop me a line or leave a comment and I will send it out to you.

~ Brigitte

ATC #1212 Amethyst

 

Title: Amethyst
Size: 2.5″ x 3.5″
Status: Available

Amusingly, I made this ATC while attempting to make a collage for the Valentine ATC Swap I signed up for on Swap-Bot. I had all this pink and red stuff laid out and then I found the bedazzled flower on the back of one of the pieces of paper and my brain just misfired. I made this instead! In my absolutely stubbornness I decided that it was at least going to have a February theme so I made it for the February birthstone, Amethyst. Perhaps an Aquarius will want to add this to their ATC collection (though of course anyone can ask for it).

The girl with the orchid hair is from a BCBG Max Azria advertisement, her hair is absolutely stunning, I would sport that color in a second. The amethysts are from my page of birthstones, one of my favorite things I’ve ever cut out, and I’m actually considering trying to make a birthstone collage each month now. The glitter at the top and bottom is actual glitter, scrap booking pages to be exact, but since this was scanned it looks much prettier in real life.

This ATC is free to anyone who would like to give it a home! If you want to add it to your collection just leave a comment or drop me a line and I will send it out to you.

~ Brigitte

PS: Yes, I still have to make that ATC for the Valentine’s swap!

ATC #1211 Ophelia 2

Title: Ophelia 2
Size: 2.5″ x 3.5″
Status: Swapped

Time for Ophelia round two! After I made the first Ophelia ATC I decided that I needed to make a different one for the Yellow Flower ATC swap. I used the same image to make the background; well, not the exact same one obviously, but it’s from the same page. The model is from the Rodarte Spring 2012 runway show, I wanted to take off the head to symbolically remove the individual identity and make it more of a stand in for all Ophelias, if that makes any sense. The blue border is a photograph of actual water and the same goes for the corners. I figured if I wanted my first Ophelia to live I had to have a drowned one to take her place. Kind of like the show “Pushing Daisies,” but super different I guess, since these are just collages. Incidentally, I absolutely love that show and recommend it highly to anyone awesome.

This is the last collage for this month’s 12/12/12 Project! I’m very happy that I managed to complete it with a week to spare. I still have a bunch of collages in the wings; in a way I just want to make all the projects collages, but I think I might get burnt out after so many. At least I have a week to think about it, right?

~ Brigitte