Finished Italy tin collage

For the second Saturday art club, back in March, we worked on collages/assemblages using Altoid tins. I finally completed my Italy inspired tin, here is the completed work.

For this tin I used the following items:
1. I transferred a photo of Italy using an inkjet print on transparency. I lightly misted watercolor paper with water (not soaking but very damp), and laid the transparency on top and used a brayer to help with the transfer. I glued the watercolor paper to mat board so it could be put in a shadowbox frame.
2. The gold paper was originally brown and from a discarded wallpaper book. I rubbed Golden brand gold paint on it with my fingers so the gold is on the ridges, but the recesses are still dark brown.
3. The postcard is from Italy, I had bought a huge pack of used postcards in Italy. Some had ugly pictures on the front, so I used it with the back of the card showing.
4. The tin is similar to an Altoids tin. I used a small butane torch (like the kind used to burn the sugar on creme brulee) to remove the paint and it now has a mottled black/brown color.
5. The hands were kind of like a spring loaded paper clip. I don't know where I found it. I don't know what they were originally for. I used my Dremel tool to cut the hands apart.
6. The picture is one I took in a church (it was actually in Germany, but I like the image).
7. For the decorative top, I cut a metal ring in half for my base and painted it black.  I glued on jewelry charms to make the gold decoration. I tried to glue these with metal glue (similar to E6000), but they would not stay in place so I ended up using Apoxie Clay on the back side, and when it was dry I painted the clay black. I added a wire at each end bent at 90 degrees to attach the decorative top to the box. I attached it and the hands with Apoxie Clay (and painted it black when it was dry).
8. The rusty doo-dad is from a flea market.
9. The tin and the doo-dad were glued on with E6000. The paper items were glued on with Golden brand gel medium (I like mixing soft gel medium with fluid medium so it is somewhat fluid).

There you go, a ton of things went into making this piece. Some of it was done a while ago, and was just pulled out of my collection for the project ( the inkjet transfer, the burnt tin, the cut hands). Other things were done specifically for the project (the gold rubbed wallpaper, the decorative top). All the parts combine to make a great piece!