Steampunk Round Robin Book

I participated in a Steam Punk Round Robin Book Swap where each person made 10 pages and submitted them to one person, who took one page from each set and bound them into a book. Each page had to incorporate a map either in the background or in the elements on the page. Later, the additional theme of steampunk was chosen. Here is my book.

The front cover was prepared by our swap hostess - I love all the dimension she used!

This close up shows some of the yummy texture and details of the cover.

She also did the inside front and back cover - and the first page of my book is my steampunk bird.

These are the inside pages, front and back. We were to have something on the back, although it did not have to be fancy at all. Most participants outdid themselves!

This is the inside back cover with a delightful pocket! This was such a fun swap. I was pretty unsure at first when the theme of steampunk was chosen, but I do really love the final results! This swap was part of the Yahoo group, Altering Without Limits (AWOL).

A Few Altered Book Pages in Progress

I have been playing around with adding texture to my pages, which is something I have been wanting to do. I found some texture medium on clearance at Michael's so I got busy right away playing. I am also adding to my Vintage Gypsy Altered Book.

This is an altered book cover that I am working on - I added the texture medium through some stencil shapes.

Both pages have decoupaged maps underneath. The page on the left is painted with acrylic and texture medium, in which I made some marks. The page on the right was painted with Golden Liquid Acrylic and then washed with a gold acrylic.

I then used an old plastic doily and another stencil to add more texture, including the work "Dream". Afterwards, I used some Walnut Ink Stain to rub over the piece and add color and show off the texture. You an really see it well if you enlarge the photo.

This is a piece that I have been playing with, which also has torn maps decoupaged underneath. The green is a piece of handmade paper and the piece is painted with acrylics and aged with Walnut Ink Stain.

This last piece shows some additions I have made to the inside cover of my Vintage Gypsy Altered Book.

A Painting of The Woods

I painted this for my daughter's boyfriend for his graduation present. I know it is hard to tell in the photo but I decoupaged torn maps on the canvas before I started. I tried to add lots of texture. It was a huge learning experience for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. It took a lot of thinking to decide what a guy would like. I'm always doing things I like, but I didn't figure he would want roses or tea cups! Ha! This is actually modeled after a scene in a card game that he likes to play. I liked the whimsical, "Tolkien-esque" look to it, and that was sort of what I was going for.

It is done on a stretched canvas, 16X20, and is done in acrylics, mostly. I used various gel mediums to add texture and also used some water color. After I decoupaged the maps on the canvas, I sketched the big trees using water color pencil. I then was able to sketch in the other trees and path, etc. I watched a couple of You-tube videos about painting forests and sunlight. Then I worked on it with various acrylics and mediums.

It was so much fun that I am already starting another painting for my daughter as one of her graduation presents. It will be totally different from this one.

I took this picture of the corner to try to show some of the texture. I am going to link up to Paint Party Friday.

A Flock of Steam Punk Birds

I participated in a swap recently where the theme was map elements and steam punk. You had to use maps in your page along with the steam punk theme. I decided to use birds and printed out the bird outline on map pages. Then I placed the birds & their embellishments onto scrapbook paper by Tim Holz. Here are my birds.