Materials To Make A Collage

When you make a collage, you create a statement. The collage may coerce a smile from those who view it, or it may bring a tear, but, whatever the emotion, the artist has full control over what materials are used and how they are used in order to create emotional responses.

Thanks to the variety, it can be a lot of fun to create a collage. You can add borders to the collage in order to form a box for the photos, or you can have ragged edges. You can add embellishments in the form of ribbons, silky and shiny fabric or scarves. A large photo frame might also make a good border. But, whatever you do, the how and why is entirely up to you.

Materials You Will Need:
Background
Glue
Photos
Words cut from magazines or created with rubber stamping techniques
Ribbon
Faux flowers
Rhinestones and other gems and jewels
Candy or gum wrappers or other food labels
Construction paper for color

This list is only a sample of your options because almost any type of material can be used in a collage, such as fabric swatches, cardboard or brown paper bags. Cut the fabric or bags into shapes, or use them to create a border. Add feathers, beads, sequins, ribbons, words and just about anything else you can glue down.

Background Choices
If you are making a small collage for a photo album or a scrapbook, your job will be easy. All you need to do is make sure that the collage isn't too thick. If the collage will go in a particular room in the house, you may want to color coordinate the border or some of the overlaid symbols, flowers or ribbons to the color of the book, but that's entirely up to you.

When using a wall as the background, be careful how you affix the materials to it. If you're using photos that you don't intend to use elsewhere again, double-sided sticky tape works exceptionally well. This type of tape will stick to anything, but it is not easy to remove. If it gets on the photos, they will be ruined. It can also lift bits of drywall when it's placed directly onto the wall, so be careful how and where you apply it. Holes in the wall can be plastered easily again before the wall is repainted. Also, if the collage is heavy, make sure it's affixed to the wall properly so it won't fall down and that the background material is strong enough to contain whatever you glue onto it.

Wedding Collage
This wedding collage will go on a photo album cover, which makes a good collage background. Place photos on the cover that tell a story about what you'll find in the photo album. If it's a wedding album, turn the cover into a story that depicts how you met, where he took you on your first date, who initiated the first kiss and what type of flowers you had at you wedding. Because these are important pictures, it's best to make doubles.

For materials beyond the photos, use ribbon from the wedding dress, or ribbon that is the same color and style as that found on the wedding dress. For the flower, use fake flowers or use a rubber stamp to recreate the flowers from your bouquet. Create the flowers on a separate piece of paper, and then cut them out and glue them on the page by creating a bed of flowers at your feet or a bouquet in your hand or in your hair.

For another fun wedding collage, use your favorite photo of the couple. Blow it up so that it's about four inches by six inches, and then place it in the center of the cover. Place the remaining photos around the main photo, either overlapped or so that the edges are tight against one another. Create a flower bouquet, place it in your hand or between the bride and groom and add a ribbon around the bouquet. Then glue a dazzling rhinestone on your finger and a gold band on his. For a finishing touch, cut out the words from the wedding announcement, and use the words as accent pieces that weave around the photos.