Maiden Voyage

This is my very first "challenge."  Mary Green of Green Paper offered a free collage sheet.  The mission....should I decide to accept it.....to "create" something, anything....as long as I use the three images (or parts thereof) that she provides.  Now since I've been back in blogland for the last month or so, I have been studying hard.  That is me....a student at heart.  I've been buying and reading the Somerset magazines.  I've been reading and re-reading my favorite blogs/artists who create the neatest things.  I stand in the same isle of Michaels for what seems like hours on end, absorbing the goods.  I decide on only the basics, as I feel that anyone can create from pre-created packages.  Maybe not, I don't know at this point.  I see some good things, even still.

I decide it is time for me to accept this challenge.  So I run off the collage sheet on several different mediums....in color, in black and white, on vellum, on decorative paper.  Again....still studying.  Finally, I decide to make some notes.  It's the 25-plus years that I have spent as a secretary and at various times as a student that makes this seem like the place to start.  I start looking at some other free images I already have on hand and start making a mental story board.  The aspiring writer in me feels like if I have a story to tell, I can make this happen.  Again....out with the books....Somerset Life and Anna Corba's VINTAGE PAPER CRAFTS.  Yes, it is starting to come together in my head.  I decide to use some of the black and white, some color, but the real kicker....Miss Mary herself on vellum.  Then I decide to color her sash and now she looks like a hand-colored sepia negative and I love the effect.

Here is her story.  The pleasure of Miss Mary's company has been requested.  Oh my!  What will she wear?  More importantly, what will she pack as this means a voyage.  Since it is her first, it is her "maiden voyage."  The trip is long and there are many stops along the way.  She gathers little momentos along the way....a violet she will press in her bible, some downy feathers that showed up one morning on deck even though she has not seen birds overhead for days.  Where did they come from?  And a pretty shell and little pieces of coral she found at the shore.  Can you see it all come together?

My first mixed media collage came together.  To my own delight, I love it and the story I hope it conveys.  I used the sepia, hand-colored version of Miss Mary.  I tucked the three color-printed "Will's Cigarettes" florals in a little glycene envelope and tucked in some downy feathers from my chickens.  The pressed violet is one my Aunt Claire dried many years ago and stuck in a birthday card to me.  The little pieces of coral from my walks on the beach.  I have a couple of old books on hand that I love to tear pages from.  Two images are from those. 

(And I just remembered that I have a credit at the nearby used book store, so I will be there tomorrow to see what I can scavenge for future projects.)  I used half of a manilla file folder and cut it into a somewhat fancy tag shape.  I tea stained it a bit, but also used some Jim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo on it as well.  Oh, I failed to mention.. ...my first time using Mod Podge as well.  And.....I LOVE IT!!  Finally, I added a couple of stamped images and I felt like Miss Mary's Maiden Voyage was recorded and complete. 

For my first project....I am very pleased.  Oh, and did I mention????? 

Miss Mary had the time of her life!!!