20,000 Leagues...

I have had several folks ask me why I have not posted anything lately.  While I have not posted any recent projects, I have continued to write and post my "Thought for the Day” on a daily basis. Do I get a little credit for that?

All I can say is, "kudos to those bloggers who manage to post with regularity”.  Even with my children grown, I am finding that it is difficult to do.  Life gets in the way, I guess.  

It’s not that I have not been in a creative spirit, it’s just that I often get so excited about starting a creative venture, that stopping to photograph and write about it tends to break the “flow of things”.  After I pull out all of my materials (my toys, as I call them), I find that I am just so focused that I don’t want anything to break my momentum.  I hate to admit, but I tend to get a little irritated if the phone rings, even if it is a precious family member.  I need to work on that.

I did just finish a spread for my Altered Book Consortium’s round robbin.  The theme of this book is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  Having just gotten back from a cruise on Saturday, I was excited to work on this one.

It may be hard to tell, but there are multiple layers involved with this one.

I first began by painting the background with acrylics, in sort of a wavy pattern, using various shades of blue and some yellow.

Next I added some images of sea plants that I cut out of scrapbook paper. I sprinkled some fine glitter on top of them which adhered to the edges of my images where some glue had “leaked out”.

*Aleene’s Original Tacky Glue was the only adhesive that I used on this page.

I then glued on some, what I will call, leaf skeletons.

To create depth in the depth blue sea, I glued on some “waves” that I cut from plastic gift wrap.

For the next layer, I added some flowers.  I put some foam circles behind my flowers before gluing them down to give added dimension.

Lastly, I added some netting, the mermaid and the words.

The mermaid is a cardstock image that I found on a calendar and her body is fabric.  I also used foam circles behind the mermaid so that she “floated” on the page.

I have only been back from vacation for 3 days now and I already want to get back out on the water!

For now, I will just have to relive my days at sea while I work on my travel journal from the cruise.

“Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.” 
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables