Title: The Strange and Seductive Ways of Mermaids
Size: 2.5″ x 3.5″
Status: Swapped

I signed up for a Mermaid ATC swap on Swap-Bot and ended up being banned because of my rating (long story), but then the swap coordinator offered to do a one-on-one swap with me to help me rebuild it. The mermaid drawing is from an encyclopedia that I cut up about 15 years ago and is probably one of the oldest pieces still in my collage stash. I actually had the full, woefully outdated set of books when my Dad announced we were moving into a much smaller house and I had to jettison a bunch of stuff. My solution was so go through all the encyclopedias and tear out the pages with the best illustrations; only a few pages are left. This mermaid is an illustration that Arthur Rackham did for an edition of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which I absolutely love, and the caption on the page read “Strange and seductive ways of mermaids,” hence the title. The background of the rather eerie looking beach and ocean was from a catalog that I cut apart, but I’m not sure which one anymore. I think it adds a creepiness that hopefully evokes Sirens (which I prefer) more than mermaids. I hope my partner likes it!

~ Brigitte

As most of you know the post office just raised its rates again, now I have no idea how much it costs to mail a letter in the US, and international letter rate is now $1.05. Yes, you read right, one dollar and five cents to mail an envelope outside of the US, and that’s only if it’s not lumpy or too “heavy.” Despite that madness I find myself sending more and more letters thanks to Swap-Bot and giving away collages here, and so, like the 80 year old granny I totally am, I was excited about the release of the Lunar New Year dragon dancer stamps. They were so pretty I found myself wanting to take a photo and so voila! They also had these bonsai tree ones, which I thought were super cute, and the ones in the right corner are the international ones. I would have bought more, but stamps are expensive!

~ Brigitte

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 Stewart 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

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

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!

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

Title: Ophelia
Size: 2.5″ x 3.5″
Status: Not Available

I really like this ATC, so much so that I’m almost unhappy that I made it for the Swap-Bot Yellow Flower ATC swap. Of course that swap doesn’t start until March so I definitely have time to make another yellow flower inspired card so I can squirrel this one away like the selfish monster that I am. The wilted daisy in the background is from the same photo series that I used as the background for the Pompeii collage and the dress in the center is Oscar de la Renta. The borders are from the same set of washi paper that I’ve been using in so many of my ATCs this year. Once it was all finished it just made me think of Ophelia, I guess it was the contrast between the vibrant, garland-wearing girl and the utterly lifeless flower that did it for me.

I honestly don’t know how to feel about Ophelia, I don’t think it’s good though. Part of the fascination with her seems to have to do with the glorification of the “beautiful suicide” wherein the young woman ends her life, usually over love, and her corpse emerges as a symbol of innocence and serenity. In a way it feels like Hamlet wanted to drive Ophelia to suicide, as though that was one of his expressed goals, rather than breaking off their engagement, to just be so god-awful to her that she’d get herself out of the way. Not to mention how it contributes to the “madwoman” trope. I like to think of this Ophelia as a revised one, stomping off to fake her suicide so she doesn’t have to deal with the societal pressure to marry Hamlet even though he’s gone off the deep end.

~ Brigitte

Title: Animal Girls
Size: 2.5″ x 3.5″
Status: Available

After I made “Tiger Girls” I really wanted to make a second, similar collage using the other two models. As you can see I did just that, though I feel like they have a fairly different tone to them, for some reason. These models are from the same magazine’s index page as the others, but one of them got sort of chopped off at the torso so, unlike normal, this one came decapitated. I used more stamps from preciousowl and the background was also used in “Jeweled Gaga.” I actually had this card sitting with the background attached ever since I made that ATC, which was last March, so for about 10 months now.

Over the weekend I met me 12/12/12 collage goal this month. A rousing success! A special thank you to everyone who has been adopting my collages, it’s nice to know that people want them, and it really helps keep me motivated. This also means the blog will be positively inundated with collages this week. Apres moi, le deluge!

This ATC is available for adoption to anyone who would like to add it to their collection, just leave a comment or drop me a line and I will send it out to you.

~ Brigitte

Title: Mary Katrantzou 2
Size: 2.5″ x 3.5″
Status: Available

I’ve already talked about what a fan I am of Mary Katrantzou’s work so there’s no need to go into it again. This ATC is really just about her amazing runway piece there in the center and showing it off. Some times my collages are simple like that! I believe that the piece shown here is from the same collection as her pieces in the previous ATC as well, even though I know I got the images out of different publications. The background is from a Bebe advertisement and the glitter is from a Target circular, of all places.

This ATC is available for adoption to whomever might want it, if you would like to add it to your collection just leave a comment or drop me a line and I will send it out to you.

~ Brigitte

Title: Tiger Girls
Size: 2.5″ x 3.5″
Status: Available

Another ATC featuring more of my preciousowl stamp haul, I gathered up all the tiger ones for use here. I believe the models are from the January 2012 edition of Elle, but I’ll have to double check. There are four models in total so I decided to divide them up into two collages. Believe it or not it took me a shocking amount of time to decide on the stamp placement. This green yellow color scheme is a favorite of mine, too. Some of you might recognize the striped bit background from somewhere as well. It’s all connected!

Happily I’m quite close to my 12/12/12 collage goal this month, exciting! This ATC is available for adoption to anyone who would like to add it to their collection, just leave a comment or drop me a line and I will send it out to you.

~ Brigitte