I have had a very creative and productive weekend.  I cleaned up my art room and then started and completed another project – Volume 1, A is for … – from the Altered Art Fat Book Yahoo Group.  This is a small group of altered artists that come together to create fat books.  We are currently creating an encyclopedia set.  We started this month with the letter A.  I chose the word Aviary.  This is an 8″wide by 4″tall card that is folded in half to create the 4″x4″ fat page.  The words run from the front to the back and it says “I know why the caged bird sings.”  Take a look!

This is the front of the card.  I drew the birdcage with a graphite pencil on an old Audubon book page and then glued a bird and egg transparency over that.  The bottom of the cage has embossed copper foil.  The yarn is attached from the backside of the page.  The blue hang tag is sewn on.

This is the back of the folded card.  The bird eggs were cut out, colored and then placed onto another old Audubon book page (you can’t see it anymore though) where I have drawn a nest using the graphite pencil.  I wrapped yarns around the outside to create a feather-type nest and extended the yarn to the front of the card to connect the two images.

I made 14 of these pages and will send them into the host next week where they will be combined with the other artist pages and then bound to create a book for each artist.  What a fun and fabulous way to share and collect art, don’t you think?

Patti at Stardust Warehouse posted this Heart Tag tutorial on the Altered Books Yahoo Group. You could use any type of papers. In mine, I used some old unfinished ATC size cards. Thank you Patti for the idea.

The purple hued Crackle Page was created for the monthly techniques challenge. This look is created when you coat a page with gel medium, add a layer of acrylic paint, let it dry, add a layer of white glue and add another layer of acrylic paint. As the glue dries, the paint crackles. The blue and white spotted page was created using a gel medium base, blue layer of acrylic paint, let it dry, add a layer of white acrylic and while that is still wet, place drops of rubbing alcohol on the page, let it dry and this is what you get. Thanks to Melissa, our technique teacher at the Altered Book Yahoo Group. February 2008.