Trying Out Something New

I've noticed that proper Etsy etiquette is to send along a free little something anytime you get an order. The idea is to get your new customer to come back.  I have yet to have a repeat customer, but that doesn't keep me from giving everyone a little something as a "thank you for your order" gift.  However, I have just run out of what I've been giving, so have to come up with something else.  With that in mind, I made the below collages out of some of my fave papers just a few weeks ago:

There was no other motivation than to make something for that giveaway, however meanwhile I am working on a design for my 2013 Card Swap card and also I've been asked for more cards at The Eyes Have It.  Add that to the fact that I've been wanting to try out color-copying my work, to see what the quality would be.  So I color copied one of the above collages.  29 cents at the UPS store!  (Thank goodness the price of color copies has gone down--when I worked at Kinko's in 1995, they were a dollar a pop.)  I was very pleased at the outcome, and so will use this technique for completing my card swap idea.  However, I thought I should do something with these color copies in the meanwhile.  So I cut them up into squares and started painting on them.  I did this while Skyping with my best friend in New York state, who was also arting at her house!  You can see her and her project in this photo too.

Here is a close up of one of the sets. These four pieces will be glued together in a creative way and turned into a card.  I like that you can hardly tell this is not the original collage!

Thank you to all of you who voted and provided input for my Studio Tour application!  Your feedback was EXTREMELY valuable!  I ended up going with 4*, 9, 1 and submitted my application right on time. I hope you'll plan on stopping by Parsley Art Studio on June 22-23!