Altered Book Exchange

I've been busy working on my "book" for our Altered Book Exchange 2013. A bunch of friends (and relatives - my sister and niece) and I decided to do an Altered Book Exchange last year. We had such a good time and enjoyed the process so much we decided at our "Wrap-Up Party" to do it again this year. I decided to do my entry as a box rather than a book. My subject was The Tarot, and I found these wonderful chipboard plaques at the craft store in Wenatchee which would make great cards. i bought enough so everyone could do three cards. 

For those who may not be familiar with Altered Book Exchanges, this is how it works: a group of people - seven in our case - agrees to participate. Everyone picks a theme for his/her book. The owner of each book does the cover (or box!), a Sign-In Page (or card!) for each of the artists to sign in, and a page telling about the book, any "rules" the owner has for his/her book, and any other information pertinent to the project. The owner does one or two or three pages, remembering to SIGN them so people will know who did which pages. When it is done, it is sent/given to the next member of the group. There is a mailing list; each member must mail the book on to the next member in the time frame decided upon by the group. In our case, each recipient has one month to do the pages before mailing it on. It mails in a big circle, and it will end (come back to the original maker) when everyone has worked in the book. In our case, that will be August. We are planning to get together at that time and look at all the completed books. It's so fun to see them when they are all done!!! Last year our Wrap-Up Party was around Halloween, so we decided to dress up according to the themes of our books. that worked out good for some (like me! My theme was "Steampunk Dreams" so I could dress Steampunk) but some books, like my sister's "Thresholds" were more challenging! 

The really neat thing is at the end, every participant has a beautiful creative book filled with artwork by special friends (and family, in our case!). 

Well, I've been working on my box and my cards as the end of February will be here before you know it!Here is a picture of the box I made:

This was a plain box I got at the craft store, and I painted it, let it dry, painted it with Elmer's Glue, and waited for it to get tacky before painting it again. That makes a lovely, old-looking crackly finish. I tried several versions of this on some small wood squares I had to see what combination I liked best. You have to use a base of one color and the top coat of another and dark and light show up the crackle best. I had purchased the top plaque and did it by antiquing some paper and then waxing it on. The word "Tarot" is wooden letters I antiqued and then nailed on. Bit of problem there - the nails were longer than the box was deep so they stuck through the plaque about 1/2" on the back side! But Jim cut them off for me so the plaque could be glued on the box. There is a mirror on the inside of the lid,so I couldn't nail into that! I remembered I had these cool green glass beads, so they were resined into the lid around the plaque. And the feet I had received in a Swap-Bot swap and they were perfect for this. 

So that's what I've been doing lately!!!!!