July 2008 Women of Courage altered book, I did two of these double page spreads. The big photo above is my mom and dad. I believe this was in Lin’s book as it has these cute quotes that I thought she would get a kick out of.

This is the second double spread and the black and white photo is my family (mom, dad, little brother and me when I was about 8 or 9). I choose to have my mom represent my woman of courage and included the story of her battle with breast cancer somewhere in each book I altered for this swap. When you untie the gold thread the tag opens up to display the story of my mom’s courage.

June 2008 WOC altered book: I ended up using the initials WOC in every page spread and for a time (I think the swap lasted around 9 months or so) WOC was a solid part of my life.

Another of the WOC books and another of 2 full double page spreads for this artist. Here I have used the same photo (from above). I was really on a paper napkin and gold paint kick at this time and everything had to have a little of both.

Through out this round robin I scoured the internet and books for quotation about courage. Here the INOCTAVA graphic serves as the container for my mom’s story:

I had also just learned about heating foam and stamping into it and creating all of these fun medallion like embellishments to include in page spreads. Even after heating and molding the foam retains a soft shape and thus makes a great 3-D embellishment for altered books.

Maybe I should do a quick video this week on how to create these fun foam bits.

May 2008 WOC altered book: And then you have the little girl in me who needs bright fun spring colors. These two double page spreads were so much fun to just play with color as much as I wanted because they fit well with the other altered pages.

I decided to try my hand at sewing. Hand sewing this little envelope from this beautiful transparent and oh so delicate fabric. I’m sure my mom can tell you what type of fabric it is.

The little envelope contains mom’s story and I unfortunately didn’t get a picture of it open. I was also engrossed in Beryl Taylor’s book and you see that with those teeny tiny squares on the left border of these pages. Oh and I tried silver out and quickly decided that gold was my metallic of choice.

Thanks for walking a bit down memory lane with me. I plan to post more photos as I find bits of time to.

- Christy

Playing with my Flip and trying to learn more about different video editing tools.

Watch the video

This page was of course related to the disaster in Haiti and the amazing outpouring of support and requests for help via social media and online in general. I think the support is greater because of our interactions online than it would have been in the past with only offline communication. What do you think?

I started by measuring the pages and decided on 7″ by 7″ per page. I then cut to pieces of Pelon to size. Allowing for the gutter between the pages I fused a paper napkin and sewing pattern tissue to the Pelon. I then sewed down gold fabric, a few additional scraps of fabric and a canvas painting I painted recently.

Finally I added beads and bits of ribbon and some sweet little stars I found in my stash. Then I fused the whole piece to the fabric pages and sewed just a bit on the outer edges to be sure it would stay adhered as the pages were flipped through over time. I have to say I did enjoy this quite a bit more than I had anticipated.

I apologize in advance for the lighting. I resorted to taking these photos late at night inside. And of course the lighting really glares off of all that gold.

This cover is fabric paper with a base of Tyvek and layered words cut from magazines. Then over that tissue paper, inks and dry brushed with gold air brush ink. The clasp is three part, two old clip on earrings and a gold heart locket. The butterfly was a gift I received in an art swap and is made from real feathers.

I am re-posting this here from my old blog. I originally completed this altered book on July 23rd, 2008. This book will always be my favorite. First love.

- Gulfsprite