bingo card collage

I created 4 cute collage mini wall hangings - using bingo cards as the base.

Here is the bingo card - all new and shiny and not at all appropriate!

I started by sanding the cards with drywall sanding screen - my "sand paper" of choice. I have a huge stack of these - sold in a kit for cleaning your barbeque, actually. You can use sandpaper of course - but i just like these.

After scratching them up i applied some neutral ink to give an aged effect.

Because sanding and aging was not quite enough - i applied a bit of white gesso with a dry brush to soften the effect even more.

Now they were perfect!

Next i punched holes in the upper corners using my jumbo eyelet setter.

I used an assortment of ephemera as background - ledger pages, old legal letters and some text cut out of old novels.

I glued the ephemera onto the bingo card with a glue stick. I added a bit of faded floral print paper for some colour.

I applied the photographs with glue dots - raising them over the background for added dimension.

This gentleman's name is Siegfried Ernst. He came in a lot of old photographs i bought on ebay years ago. I used all the pics in my "reject" pile. These images were either too faded or too small to use in collage - so i separated them from the "good" ones. But their size was perfect for this project. Siegfried's little caption is about tidiness being a virtue. I added some brown ribbon and a brass metal latch for a final bit of embellishment.
This one features Rufus - a spaniel attempting to slide down a slide in someone's backyard. This was taken in 1939 in san diego. The caption is from a dictionary which states that a dog is a flesh eating animal! The card is finished off with a luggage tag strap - that sort of looks like a dog collar, and an actual rabies clinic dog tag.
This aspiring young fellow came from a set of photo booth strip postcards. His caption is asking mom where his shirt is. She just pressed it in the kitchen. Yes - i spent hours looking through books for appropriate little phrases! A Delta airlines pin finishes off this card.
And finally this card with three lads in bathing trunks. I added a bit of aqua rick rack to this card for colour and also to evoke water. And finally a numbered pin and key - the kind you pinned onto your bathing suit at the local pool, when you used the public lockers.

I finished off all 4 cards with some aqua and white martha stewart twine, from Michaels. I plan to send these off as gifts to people who recently sent me some things - as a thankyou. One of them is a guy, so they all just ended up on the masculine side. They were fun to do - and i hope the recipients like them!