Good morning!

I have something rather different to share this week as I don't know about you, but I seem to accumulate rather a lot of bit and pieces leftover from previous projects and I decided as a rather late new year resolution to use some of them up and this is my first piece of artwork created with just a few of the bits I had left.

You might need a cuppa before reading this as it's a bit picture heavy as I wanted to explain the process as best I can this time.

Here are some of the bits I wanted to use, although as you'll see, not all of them ended up in the finished collage.

So, I have quite a lot of different elements including that gorgeous waffle packaging, some tapestry canvas, various embellishments and threads, an overflow mop up paper towel (this is really fab as I discovered it had 3 layers each with inks on!), bits and pieces of ink spray overflow paper and so on. In fact, a lot to play with.

My chosen substrate is the largest square MDF Chunkie which is 8 x 8 inches and after assembling it, I covered this with some of the inky paper towel. I had already peeled off one layer but after sticking it in place, I discovered yet another layer so had to peel that off the glued piece!

As you can see, it's very ink by still has the lovely chevron pattern from the paper towel even though it's the third layer.

I then took one of my favourite masks from Melina and applied a pattern to the top right corner with Rich Vintage Texture Paste in Patina. I haven't used this paste before and would recommend not putting too much paste on at once as I did as it ran a little under the mask. The end result was rather grungy but fit the style of my collage so that was good.

I then prepared my embellishments, die cutting a couple of circles from the overflow papers and distressing the edges with an emery board. I cut a piece of the tapestry canvas and a piece of overflow paper in a paler shade slightly smaller. I stamped lace on the paper with pink ink and heat embossed it with clear powder but it was a bit bright so I used my favourite antiquing trick which is to mist on Aubergine Lustre Spray which gives a lovely effect whilst dulling down bright colours. I then stamped on some script with Ochre ink.

I stamped one of Melina's grunge butterflies on pink and blue overflow paper with black ink and heat embossed the image with clear powder before cutting it out. I also grunged up a Craftyboard leaf with Pink Satin Ink topped with the new Weathered Gold embossing powder by Seth Apter for WOW and it gives a fabulous textured look.

I took a piece of the waffle packaging and misted it with Bluebell and Rose Flat Matte sprays then added a little of the Weathered Gold embossing powder for some textured bling.

Before gluing everything in place, I stamped the tiny numbers from the Grunge Butterflies set on the background with black ink. I finished off with the dream text stamped and heat embossed on overflow paper and a coil of rusty wire. I clipped the paper panel with the text to the tapestry canvas with a bronze bulldog clip before gluing in place.

Rusty Wire

Scraps of inky papers, mop up paper towels, tapestry canvas