Pele: Hawaiian Goddess of Fire

For the Dark Side AB Round Robin that I am participating in, I chose to do a spread about Pele, the Hawaiian Goddess of Fire.  Chris' book is all about "Spirits" and of all the Hawaiian spirits, Pele is my favorite.  I just love the colors of fire--red, yellow, gold, copper, orange, rust, etc.

To create my fire background, I took a manila folder and crumpled it.  I pulled out all of my "fire-colored" ink pads.  Starting with the lightest color (peach), I stamped all over the crumpled folder.  With the next slightly deeper color (yellow), I stamped only about 3/4 of the way up leaving only the lightest peach color at top 1/4 of the folder.  As I continued stamping with progressive darker colors, I only stamped 1/2 way up and then only the bottom 1/4 of the folder.  The result is a graduated, ombre effect--the darkest colors at the bottom and the colors gradually lightening up as you move to the top of the folder.  When I was happy with the colors of my background, I sprayed a copper shimmer mist on top which added a touch of brimstone to the flames.

I created a pop- up for Pele's face.  Her hair is colored with Inka Gold "Copper" from Artistcellar (Hi Lisa!)  I love the rich color and metallic finish for her fiery red mane.

Visions of London, Paris & Rome

When I think of Paris, I think of FASHION!  My spread for Lori's book doesn't really focus on a particular technique.  Here, I painted the page with Super Sparkle Lumiere paint which gave it a pearlescent finish.  I stamped the page to add some "french" touches like the chandelier and vintage birdcage.  Then I cut out fashion figures from cardstock and covered them with newsprint.  Now the fun begins--I created haute couture from my leftover scrapbook papers!  Of course no designer gown by moi would be complete without a little touch of bling!

Celestial Chunky Pages

I am so enjoying hosting our Sketchbook group's Chunky Page Swap!  This month, our theme was "celestial."  I think a few of the players struggled with this theme, but when the pages started rolling in, they were just beautiful!  I think because we have all known each other (on-line) for 1-2 years, everyone really brings their A-game to the table.  You can see each person's unique personality come through on the pages they create and these 4 x 4" pages are more like a gift to one another than just another swap.  Thank you, my Sketchbook Sisters for allowing me to be your hostess!

Tip-In Swap: Focus on Technique

I have been a member of the Altered Books group on Yahoo for a few years now.  I'm not terribly active on that group, but this month, one of the members offered to host a tip-in swap.  I thought it would be fun to participate.  Each player is asked to make ten pages using a particular technique.

For my tip-ins, I wanted to do a pulled paper technique.  This technique creates a grunge-like background.  I have done it before using a black, gray and silver palette.  The background colors for these pages were inspired by a recent Somerset Studio article that showcased a yummy palette consisting of purple, turquoise and mustard yellow. 

I began by choosing one color as my base color.  After that layer dried, I added splashes of a second color on top.  When that dried, I blended the first color over the second color.  Using the third color, I took bubble wrap and the rim of a paper dixie cup and stamped randomly over the pages for added texture.

Now for the pulled paper.  I took colored newpaper pages and tore them into long strips.  Then I applied gel medium to the painted page and adhered the strips of colored newspaper to the page.  After 1-3 minutes, I began to pull the paper strips off the page.  Some of the paper will stick to the page and some will come off.  If you want more paper to stick, you can leave it on a little while longer. If you want to remove some of the paper that has stuck to the page, you can dampen your finger and simply rub off the excess.

As you can see, I made one set of pages using yellow, another set using purple and a third set using turquoise as the primary color for some variation.  I thought I would like the purple the best, but when everything was said and done, I was drawn most to the turquoise blue pages, so that is the one I kept for myself!