A mixed bag of collage (mostly!)

I thought I would share a few visual diary pages, the first one being the results of the marigold dye that I made with the kids. The first two samples shows the dye colour at 5 minutes and then 1.5hrs. Both were taken prior to boiling and there was no difference between the 2 shades. The middle sample shows the mix after it had been boiled for an hour (much stronger as you can see) and the last 2 is the dye 3 days after boiling. It lost it's intesity and developed an 'organic' smell so we watered it down and fertilised the celery plants with it! The brown paper is coffee dyed computer paper and only added to the page to compliment the yellow. If I were to do this again I would probably make sure I used the dye soon after boiling then cooling it as the dye was at it's richest then. I think it would be quite easy to over-power the much paler shade I got after several days. I will be interested to see what happens to the colour of my samples over time. I have saved some yellow paper for future collages!

Above: Marigold dye, coffee, gesso, recycled encylcopedia pages.

Above:Bird houses "zetti" style collaged onto a painted background in my VD.

Below: Painted page from my VD. Getting warmed up and practising an idea for painting backgrounds for my collages. Acrylic paint applied using a plastic credit-type card and bubble wrap. No brush:)

The Cherry collage below is for a recipe tip in swap. I wouldn't usually join a recipe swap but I need the motivation having a project where I am working with others can give me. This is a 12 month swap, a different food type each month and we each make 8 pages the same and recieve 7 different pages back. The recipe I chose is for a Chocolate-Cherry Fudge chosen because I wanted to collage cherries!

Recipe card 4"x4". Gold serivette, pink and cream card, cherries made from painted paper and magazine pages. The card is sitting on a VD page for the purpose of this photo!

Incase you want it to here's the recipe: 400g tin condensed milk, 400g chocolate, 100g chopped red galce cherries, approx 20 chopped pink marshmellow. Melt together milk and chocolate over a low heat, slowly mix in cherries and marshmellows when melted. Line a 26 x 16 cm tin with paper and pour in fudge mix. Allow to firm in fridge, cut into fingers and try not to eat all at once!