Adventures in Collage!

My husbands father died in 1995. During the process of going through his belongings my husband discovered a box filled with old negatives and slides. There didn't appear to be any pictures that correlated with the negatives and the other two brothers were not interested in the box...so my husband brought it home. What a wonderful discovery! It was filled with images of his family and his many relatives...some were taken before the war when they lived in Hungry. Lost brothers in German uniforms, life on the farm, the family together. They were priceless - at least to us.

There were also photos of my husband as a child, pictures of the brothers together...his family intact. So many wonderful memories. There were pictures of his parents as newly weds, early photos of my husband as a baby being held by his mother.

One of my favorite photos was of his Tante Christal (Oma's sister) and his Uncle Ernst (before they got married) standing outside Ernst's car hugging each other and looking so in love! (That's Peter in the fore ground picking up rocks.) I added a little "bling" considering Christal loves to be "over the top" in her manner of dress and style. She's pretty stylin' in the picture. Full 1950's dress - cool car and cute guy - what more could you ask for?

I thought the picture would make a great collage' to take with me to Canada. Since we were driving I would have room to take more "art" along with me. I also thought the picture of Christal and Ernst would be a pick me up - considering Ernst has been really sick the last year or so. Whenever I see the picture of the two of them it makes me smile. They looked so happy together (they just celebrated 50 years of marriage.)

I think she and Ernst were pleased with the gift. She said she was going to frame it and hang it in a predominate place to enjoy.

For Oma I also took my cues from the past. There were some great photos of her as a young woman and a wonderful picture of her holding her first son (my husband). You can see the joy on her face. I also love the one of her sitting on the first car she and her husband owned.

I used bits of lace and buttons because of her love of sewing, photocopied the 23rd Psalm from a German Bible (her favorite passage), some scrabble tiles (she loves to play games) and other ephemera to round out the collage'.

I think she was very surprised and pleased! She showed it off to everyone that came to the house during our 10 day visit.