Cobalt Blue Altered Book Spread

I have been working very hard on my art during the last week. The kids finally went back to school after flu and snow days. Hopefully something resembling quasi-normal routines will kick in !!

The following project is another Altered Book Spread for True Colors Round Robin that I am in charge of. This work was done in the Cobalt Blue book. I have been looking forward to working in this book for a long time. I have been putting aside pictures and buttons, trims and wrapping paper. The background blue paper used in this spread is the blue paper that I made last week and have displayed in the previous post. I went with one of my favorite color combos: Yellow and Cobalt.

The yellow and orange papers used for the petals are also made from the paint scrapped paper in the previous post.Along with the phrase" Live Life Like A Sunflower", there is small white writing running along the edge of the petals that says: Stay Open, Bend with the breeze, Turn your face to the sun, Brighten someone else's day, and Bloom where you are planted.

I made the center of the sunflower with a section of an old wicker chair seat . Irescued this treasure fom the dump, my Mom was going to toss it- most people would !! I believe that it was the seat from a little swedish rocking chair that had been a favorite of my grandmother. Inside many of the holes in the canning I glued brass and copper colored seed beads to give the impression of seeds. I am really pleased with the texture and depth that the canning added to the piece.

The other side of the spread is something completely different. I cut up pieces of saved images and wrapping papers, ticket stubs and fibers to make the background for the poem that I rescued froma discarde childrens book. I am showing two views of the is page as in the first shot some of the images are covered by the fibers and the vintage shade putll with the blue bird on it.