I never did find out just what my son was doing that day. And the Sibling Wall of Silence was absolutely no help....

Cosmopolis artsy transfers**coming soon and on sale**
Cosmpolis artplay palette http://www.oscraps.com/shop/ArtPlay-Palette-Cosmopolis.html
Art WordArt http://www.oscraps.com/shop/Art-WordART-Mix-No.-1.html
Sunkissed WordArt No 1 http://www.oscraps.com/shop/Sunkissed-WordART-Mix-No.-1.html
Autumn WordArt No. 7 http://www.oscraps.com/shop/Autumn-WordART-No.-7.html
Antiquity WordArt No. 1 http://www.oscraps.com/shop/Antiquity-WordART-Mix-No.-1.html
Thin Strip Clipping Masks http://www.oscraps.com/shop/ThinStrips-Masks-No.-1.html
Button Threadz No. 1 http://www.oscraps.com/shop/ButtonThreadz-No.-1.html

Notes for Photoshop Elements 14
When I'm not painting with artsy transfers, I like to use them to help collage the background and midground of a piece, a layering process that is similar to what happens in hand-cut collage.

In this piece I started from the bottom up, just like when working with paper, making a background from solid paper #3 and solid paper #4 on multiply blending mode. Dragging solid paper #2 on difference blending mode on top of the background gave a bluish chalkboard effect, which I liked. I decreased the opacity of this layer to 80%.

Artsy Transfer #4 came next. I dropped it on top, right in the center of the layout, then dropped the photo of my son randomly inside the Artsy Transfer so that some parts were above and some below. I liked where it landed so I left it. I then proceeded to add dimension to the photo by randomly dropping nine of the thin clipping masks within the layer stack. I tilted some, gave others different drop shadows. Then I clipped copies of my photo to them.

I pulled in Artsy Transfer #5 next, plunking it randomly in the middle of my layer stack, figuring I could move things up and down as needed, but it looked pretty good so I left mostly everything where it landed. The little P transfer layer was pure serendipity, and I duplicated it and used it in a label. I added a word art cluster, the pieces of which I assembled from various Word Art sets and, just for some definition, dropped frame #1 from the Artplay Palette deep in the layer stack so only a corner was revealed. A button and Button Threadz finished up the layout.