Collaged Train Case - front

I took a "Train Case" class at Croppinsville in Collinsville a few weekends ago.  The class was taught by Sara Hanlon of Fifth Child Studio.  Each participant had their own case to collage.  My theme was birds and butterflies.  I think most of the participants put fibers on their handles when they finished, but I had this material that I had dyed for a project.  I tore it into strips and added various types of ribbon.  I attached the nest with the eggs to the netted ribbon.  I made several medallions using images and words with Tim Holtz's fragments.  I tied a medallion to each end of a piece of heavy string and then tied these strings in with the ribbons. 

I started my case by painting the bottom with Studio's Landscape Green.  I chose images of birds that had greens and blues.  I then added browns and oranges.  I had three indented areas around my case at the opening.  I chose a blue ribbon with green and brown circles for the larger middle indention.  For the two smaller ones, I cut cardstock with thin stripes of greens, blues, browns and oranges.  I added butterflies, faux postage and words to my collaged images.  I sponged inks into areas to tie the images together.

Sara is a great teacher and is so patient!  She offers so many images and a folder full of choices.  One thing she said over and over was that she was "all about choices".