Project Tutorial - Collage Box Wall Art

" Wonderful Women"

I decided to create this gal to place on the wall to honor all of the important women in my life. I used photos of my two grandmothers, mother, and my sister. All of these gals are very significant in my life. Just quickly, I created her arms out of wire and beads, her legs out of shrink plastic, her body out of a small 3in x 5in wooden collage box, and rubberstamped her head onto cardstock. Most all materials in this project are from Club Scrap.

Supply List:
Collage box
Patterned paper
Card stock
Cut out
Shrink Plastic
Rubberstamps
Charms: Chocolate bar (Club Scrap)
Charms: A Charming Place
Distressed inks, Vintage Photo & Weathered wood: Ranger
Adrirondack inks, Butterscotch & Ginger: Ranger
Alcohol inks: Ranger
Palette Noir Black: Superior
Small bottle: Club Scrap
Safety pins: Club Scrap
Beads: Bistro Beaders/Club Scrap
Microbeads: Art Accentz
Fibers: Lion Brand fun fur
Picture frame hanger
Permanent Clear glue
Glue dots
Pop dots
Wire: Artistic
Wire working tools (jig, cutters, bending tool, etc): Artistic
Standard hole punch
Heat gun
Finger tip sponge dauber
Q-tip
Fiskars circle cutter
Dremel

Instructions:

1. Take collage box and distress inks and sponge onto all surfaces, use a Q-tip to get into the corners.
2. Use dremel to drill tiny holes in the bottom two boxes (for attaching legs) and the top of the second set of boxes (for attaching the arms).
3. Cut small pieces of pattern paper or cardstock to fit into the boxes. Rubberstamp images or sentiments onto the cardstock. Ink all edges. Glue into the boxes using glue dots.
4. Print out small photos and adhere in the little box windows.
5. Fill tiny bottle with seed beads and glue in with clear permanent glue.
6. Attach charms using pop dots for a 3-D effect. I chose charms that are symbols of my favorite things. I added other beads and cut outs as well for embellishments.
7. Creating the head. I cut a large circle, approx 3 inches wide, and rubberstamped my gal’s head. Used various other stamps to stamp around the edge of the circle and ‘frame’ her head. Attach to back of box with glue dots.
8. Creating the arms. I used my wire jig and made little mitten shaped hands and then added a couple of beads, a charm, and then some more beads. I put the end of the wire through the drilled hole in the side of the box and wind it up into a circle tight, to hold the arm in place. On the other arm I used a purse rubberstamp and stamped on shrink plastic to make my gal her own purse to carry.
9. Creating the legs. I cut out a set of legs using a template I drew up (see attached) on shrink plastic. My shrink plastic has a rough side and smooth shiny side. I then rubberstamped some images and sentiments onto the rough side of the “leg” and punched a hole at the top using a standard hole punch.
10. Heat the shrink plastic with heat gun. I then flipped over the ‘leg’ and used alcohol inks and colored the shiny side of the shrunken shrink plastic
11. I attached the legs with safety pins, by putting the pin through the hole in the leg and the hole I drilled in the box, but before closing the pin, I added a few beads for additional decoration.
12. Use clear permanent glue and attach microbeads on front edge of top and sides of box.
13. User clear permanent glue and attach fibers on bottom of box creating the “skirt” to the gal.
14. Add a hanger to the back of the collage using permanent glue – for hanging on the wall.

Good luck and have fun!
Debbie Weller
a.k.a. DebDuzScrappin