DIY Artwork: House-Warming/Birthday Collage

When my good friend Kara moved in with her boyfriend over the summer, I knew I wanted to do something in the form of a "house-warming" gift for her. The fact that her birthday coincided relatively with her move was just a doubly good reason to make something special for her new space. So I discreetly tricked her into describing for me the color scheme of her new living room (it's way over in Massachusetts, so it's not like I could pop in for a casual investigative visit), and got started picking out some pieces that I could use to construct a collage for her.

To create a collage, I first figure out my color scheme. Kara told me that her new living room was filled with beiges, browns, blues and aquas - which sounded fab to me. I love a good aqua/beige scheme myself. In addition to those hues, throwing in a pop or two of a bright natural green seemed like a good idea. And so I began flipping through my stash of magazines and pulling out pages that had colors/textures that tickled my fancy.

.  the colors duke! the colorssss!  .
.  (triple bonus points if you get the reference)  .

Once I'd collected a stack of potential pieces, I got to work tearing and cutting them and then arranging them onto an 11x14 piece of poster board. I neglected to take enough pictures during this step... oops. #BadBlogger.

Here, I've finally finished arranging the pieces - but now comes the task of glueing them all down:

 

.  top half  .

.  bottom half  .

Here is the piece finished - glued, trimmed and framed:

And Kara even sent me a picture of how it looks in her new apartment:

.  WHAT A SPECTACULAR VASE  .
.  ("vase" pronounced very dramatically like "vaahhhhhhhze")  .

What sorts of arts 'n crafts projects have you been getting into? Do you like to make presents for your friends and family too?

Check out more collages to get your creative juices flowing ~> here!

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{Linking with Craft Frenzy Friday}