Collage like an Ephemerologist

Thursday, I helped my pal Kim celebrate her Bday by attending her innagural Inspire my Life retreat. I say innagural because judging from the instructors, the atmosphere, the workshop line-up and even the welcome packets, there is no doubt their will be another.



I took a class about collaging using ephemera. Uh..what? Until a few years ago, I had no idea what that word was, or more importantly how to pronounce. Ephemera...spoken here, is anything that at one time was meant to be thrown away but instead was kept. It is usually paper, but epherma ranges from a page from a love letter to a beer ticket at a fair, to an image from a vintage bag of candy. Using these types of items in a collage project tell a story, have a history and they are well, interesting.


I started by covering my tiny little canvas with a page from a kids biology book. Then layering on things like a piece of foreign money,



an image from a child's playing card,



a page from an Russian primer



and a cut out of a black and white photo. Along with a few other cut and past images.

Our instructor, Mel, banished our fears of ruining these artifacts and instead showed us the wonders we can create when we rethink the things we toss.

She has a knack for using all types of ephemera from grocery store remnants to mini clippings and tickets to create mini treasures of recycled stuff.


I have uses bits of these tips thru some of my other projects, but this workshop opened a whole new way of creating and I am very excited to try it some more.

Thanks Mel for your sharing your passion and Kim, for organizing the retreat and for your overall awesomeness!