A Plethora of Purple Pages

What joy to receive packages in the mail - filled with creative works of art by my fellow altered book enthusiates! Today i opened a fat envelope from Dorothy. Her sign in tag is a playing card from the game Clue - Professor Plum of course.

Apparently he was quite the ladies man.

Here are all his many loves: Iris, Violet, Heather and others.

Here is a page that combines Dorothy's love of quilting and fabric with paper.

Never underestimate the many uses for hardware store paint chips!

Here is a little swirl of purple hues.

And what's this?? mini purple quilt! How adorable!

I must do something very special with this!

Thanks Dorothy!

Purple dots anyone?

Our dear altered book friend Shanna moved away last summer and had to leave our little group. But she asked us to participate in a tip-in swap for the summer.

I chose the theme "PURPLE" based on the inspiration of the local jacaranda trees. I wrote about the book HERE.

Well i received my first set of pages in the mail from Shanna and here they are glued into my book. SHe did one-sided pages, a two page spread - so they just needed a bit of glue stick to attach them into the book.

Shanna chose two fun ideas for the purple theme - Here is her one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater! She used lots of glitter and paint and her signature little coloured dots to create the monster. Yes - Shanna HAND PUNCHED all those dots from magazines to create an interesting intricate collage.

Here is Purple Mountain Magesty. A beautiful cluster of pointy purple peaks, again sprinkled with purple dots.

Along with the pages, Shanna included a baggie filled with yarn samples. And yes, MANY of them are purple!! What a fun an unexpected treat.

Here is her eggplant shaped sign in tag - how cool is that!??!

In a book swap from last year, Shanna created a pop-art american flag with hundreds of hand punched bed, white and blue dots. Her attention to detail is inspiring.

Thanks Shanna!

New Altered Book - Purple

Here is a shot (from the web) of the incredible purple jacaranda trees in Pasadena - which inspired this book.

Here is the cover of my newest altered book - PURPLE. Beleive it or not the book is actually titled The Purple Plain - and i found it completely by accident in a box of books that were still packed from the move!

I am going to be doing a new altered book swap this summer - a "tip-in" swap. If you have not heard of that, it is a variation of the traditional altered book round robin. Instead of mailing books around to your fellow artists, instead you work on individual pages. Then you mail JUST the pages to each other. When you receive pages for your book, you "tip-in" to your original book.

This is the inside cover - using three different scrapbook papers

How do you do a tip-in swap? There are a few ways.

One is to cut two pages out of your book - leaving about 1/2 inch inside the book. When another artist creates their pages you specify the dimensions of the page. They create collage on the front and back - leaving a bit of a border along one edge undecorated. THen they mail you the pages. You glue their page in between the two leftover cut pages - in essence like glueing the pages back into your book.

This is the intro page. Since the book will not be mailed around, we are posting out themes, page sizes and instructions on a wiki site for all the participants to see.

Another way to to a tip in is to decorate just one side of your pages - then mail them off. You would then glue them ON TOP of an existing page in your book.

This is a picture from the web of a yellow car completely surrounded by fallen jacaranda blossoms. This is in south africa where jacaranda trees are quite abundant.

This is a purple passion flower really close up. Almost alien looking! I have instructed my fellow artists to create pages in any theme they like - so long as it is predominantly purple.