I am here to tell you I spent WAY too much time on this card.  I probably had 5 different flowers stamped and diecut, along with additional leaves, but nothing looked right.  I had even numbers of elements which throws off the balance so I eliminated everything and basically started over with a simpler approach.  Using the rules of collage, there are clearly 3 elements (well really 4 with the sentiment) that are mounted on a diagonal.  

I've re-typed my notes HERE and posted them to my website.  My hope is you'll find them useful when designing your cards.  I'd love you to share photos and tell me what rule(s) you applied to achieve your card design!

​The card below took me a long time to collage, so don't be in a hurry if you have lots of pieces!  This card has it all...large and small elements, texture, glitter, pearl paint, etc.  There are actually 8 diecuts on this card front which drove me crazy!  I took off the sentiment, but felt I liked it on.  To make the pieces an uneven number, I ended up adding 3 gems on the leaves.  Now that's better!

Think of this exercise as putting puzzle pieces together using the rules of collage.  The blue flower was laid down first and then the other pieces were clustered and tucked behind.  The tilted lattice diecut was just the right texture to break up all the solid pieces.  I glittered the spiral flowers to also break up the solid images.

Had to go with a simple collage after the last card!  It does look really CAS doesn't it?  Let me tell you, the Sizzix dies from Tim Holtz are so much fun.  The fussy umbrella took forever to piece together!  The background circle falls under the category of eye catching and therefore, only needs a few images.  The stemware is the focal point with a couple of accessories.  The sentiment grounds all the pieces giving the overall card a nice visual flow.

Christmas in July is always big for card makers and since this is the last weekend in July, I just squeaked in a card!  I wanted it to be simple (ha, ha) and chalk water colored because I stamped onto regular cardstock.  I keep talking about chalk watercolor...YOU HAVE TO TRY IT!!!!

As far as collage rules go, this really isn't collage per se.  The Stampendous image was stamped off the edge leaving just enough white space to add a vertical sentiment (Stampendous).  A little Stickles glitter and Wink of Stella and gold splatter added just the right sparkle.