Marie Antoinette Folder Swap

I spent the weekend preparing my folder for our Marie Antoinette swap. My theme for this swap is "Dans Le Boudoir" which translates into "In the Bedroom..." I started by spray painting my entire folder silver. I had these fabulous buttons made with fuschia rhinestones which I wanted to use as my folder enclosures. Inside (on the left flap) I used pink glitter paper and a lace doily to create a pocket. Sox gave me a wonderful picture of a chandelier which I printed on a transparency and secured with eyelets to the inside of my folder.

As I began to gather my materials, I was drawn to pink, black and silver. Suddenly, it dawned on me that my theme was taking on a decidedly "dirty glam" edge. Marie Antoinette, boudoir, dirty glam, hmmm...guess it was no surprise that I chose to make a corset for my spread. It's hard to see in this picture, but I placed eyelets and threaded a thin leather cord to lace up the corset. I finished off the corset by decorating it with little pink rhinestones. Perfect!

The Red Queen

Just finished my spread in the first book of this new AB RR. Kathy's book was entitled "Alice's Adventures Underground." Lucky for me, I was the first one to work in Kathy's book, so I had my choice of what to do. The characters from "Alice in Wonderland" are so colorful! I absolutely had to do a pop-up of the Red Queen.

Kathy had already prepared her book by painting backgrounds on some of the pages. I chose the red background for my Red Queen spread. The background pretty much set the tone and feel for my spread. All it needed was the Red Queen pop-up. I did a simple tab pop-up, added a few pop-up hearts and a mini queen of hearts playing card. The spread would not have been complete with her famous line, "Off with her head!"

Mike's "Point" book

I am the second to the last person to work in Mike's book for our current RR. It began with "Follow the Leader" and quickly evolved to a book about "points" ("get to the point," what's the point?" "point made," etc.) It took some time for me to figure out what I was going to do but eventually chose to go with "destination point" as we were coming to the end of the RR.

For this spread, I decided to iris fold in the shape of a large oval (to fill the page) and chose this colorful "old world map" tissue paper to create the spread on the right side. To fill the aperture in the center, I found the word "point" on one of the unused pages and used it. Mike had thinned out the pages of his book ahead of time leaving a few 1/2" wide strips of paper from the pages that used to be there in the center of my spread. I had almost forgotten about this old map I had picked up from a library book sale years ago. (See middle photo). It was mounted on linen and fit the dimensions, color and theme of Mike's book just perfectly to be incorporated to my spread. Fortunately, the map was double layered allowing me to separate the layers on the left edge and use double-sided tape to mount the map onto the 1/2" wide strips in the midde creating a new page with the map itself. Does that make sense?

I still have to add a few finishing touches before I turn the book in on Saturday, but this gives you a good idea of what my spread will look like.

Magnet Madness

Been spending some time making these cute little magnets to give away to friends. Quick, easy and fun!

A Study in Black & White

I recently joined an on-line AB RR. Since my book will be logging some miles (Washington State, Wisconsin, Alabama, Oklahoma and back to Hawaii), I didn't want it to be too big or too heavy to mail. The book I chose is called "Black Notice". It's about 5 x 8 and since there are only 5 artists in this group, I thinned out the pages so it's only about 1/3 its original thickness.

For my theme, I wanted to challenge each of the artists to create a spread in black and white (shades of gray and silver are also acceptable). On the inside front cover, I explain the theme of my book and I have a sign-in sheet created with a silver mesh screen and some chipboard tags.

I decided to use string art in my spread because I had recently completed my spread in Fran's book (see my blog entry entitled "The Time Traveler's Wife") and wanted to do it in my book too! It's a simpler version because my book was a bit smaller, but I still like the way it came out.

Debbie's "Hair" Circle Book

As promised, I've uploaded photos of the "hair" circle book that Debbie did as part of her spread in my "Body Parts" book. The photos don't really do it justice. The circle book is a visual treat for the eyes. There are six different sections and each is jammed packed with so many goodies: pop-ups, inserts, humor, fashion and a hair color sampler to boot! There is just so much to digest--every time I look at it, I see something new. Thank you Debbie for this treasure!

Art Dolls

The top photo is a picture of my first art doll. She came in a pre-made kit which is how I learned to make them. She is small--only about 4" tall--and simple. I substituted a beautiful purple glass bead with gold flecks for her head.

I made the teal and purple "Create" doll for an art swap that was set up like a chain letter. Remember those? I had the luxury of knowing the person that my doll would go to, so I made it especially with her in mind :-)

The black/white/purple "Love" doll was given to a dear friend of ours who continues her courageous battle against leukemia. It's hard to see in this picture, but I strung affirmation tags in her hair ("faith," "hope" and "love"). This doll sends her our love when we can't be there with her.

Monochromatic ATCs

This was the first (and only) time I ever made ATCs. We challenged the people in our art exchange to make "monochromatic" ATCs. I naturally gravitated toward purple, these images and words. I made nine different ones, traded 6 and kept these three. They were my favorite of the bunch!

Floral Inchies

Our art exchange also made floral-themed inchies. Make six and get six back! I made the ones in the top photo and the ones I got back are displayed in the second picture. Composition and proportion are particularly challenging when you have to work in such a small space. Inchies are truly miniature pieces of art.

Altered Altoid Tins

Aren't these fun? And so very ME! Su and I hosted a few art exchanges last year and altering altoid tins was one of our projects. Do you think I put enough bling on them?

Altered Books 10th Anniversary Page Swap

The Altered Books Yahoo Group celebrated its 10th Anniversary last year. To commemorate the event, one of its members (Corinne) invited everyone to create a 4 x 6 page celebrating the milestone. Corinne spent endless days, nights, paper, printer ink putting together 189 books for each person who submitted a page. I did a page with "a little black dress." After all, you can't celebrate in style if you're not properly dressed! Imagine, she color copied each original page 189 times, cut them down to size and then bound them with a ribbon enclosure so that each artist would have a book to call their own. She initially intended to return the original page to each artist, but awed by this tremendous undertaking, we all decided to give our original pages to Corinne so that she would have 189 original pieces of art in her book. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be involved in this project. A special thanks to Pam Yee for inviting me to participate :-)