Koinoniphobia!

Wow, it has been awhile since I created anything and I was really feeling rusty as I started to tackle Pat's "K is for..." book.  It's a pretty open-ended theme which is what made it a bit of a challenge for me.  I began to list words that I like that begin with the letter K.  Kitsch, Kinky, Kinetics...then I went to the internet and found a bunch of lesser known "K" words.  When I read the definition of "koinoniphobia," I knew I had found my word.

Koinoniphobia is the irrational dread of being in a room full of people or an abnormal fear of being in the company of a group of people.  Who knew?

I actually worked my spread for this book backwards.  I started with the "room full of people" part.  Found a few "Where's Waldo?" images on the internet, printed them out to do a packing tape transfer.  The pages of the book were slightly larger than my Waldo tape transfers, so I had to do the backgrounds in two parts.  I cut an irregular line which helped mask the place where the two pieces join.  If I had left a straight edge, it would have looked too obvious.

In keeping with Pat's theme, I knew I wanted to do a large cut-out letter "K."  I initially thought I would put the "K" on the right hand side of the page.  This was mainly because the downstroke of the letter K would provide a good anchor (along the full length of the spine) for the cut-out.  Yet, placing the "K" on the right side interrupted the flow of my spread.  In the end, I decided to move the "K" to the left side of the page and cut it out in such a way that it still had enough support and strength.  

Since the pages were not that thick, I glued 3-4 pieces of cardstock between four book pages.  Then I cut out my free-hand letter "K."  Red seemed to be the color that would compliment the room full of people who were now taped to the following pages.   I was toying with the idea of defining the word on the right side of the letter "K."  At a recent playdate, my friend Debbie, suggested I make a door on the right side of the page.  Then the door page would turn (open) to reveal the room full of people.  Brilliant!

I painted my door red and used crackle medium to give the door that distressed/weathered look.  Of course, because I had worked my spread backwards, I didn't want to use a brad for my doorknob because it would damage my tape transfer on the opposite side of the page.  I ended up using a piece of foam adhesive and some Tacky Glue to secure the brad on--instead of through--the page.  Lastly, for additional detail, I used a decorative die-cut to add dimension to the center of my door--not unlike a real door would have.