ICE Round Robin Altered Book

This is the cover and Inside Cover of my latest RR AB for our "International Collaboration Experiments in Altered Books Group"

My theme is Nature and the title (as you can see) is "Where The Green Fern Grows"
This book was an old Child Craft Encyclopedia that I gleaned from the local Thrift Store for $1...great bargain...these kind of books (and school text books) work great for altered books because they were made to have a lot of wear and tear, and the spines are really strong...I figured for a RR....with 12 players, my book would get lots of wear and tear...especially since 3 of our players are in the UK and the traveling by land/sea/air or what ever the post office does with them (sometimes I suspect they use horses and camels..lol)...anyway, this is a sturdy book. I sanded the cover and then painted it with Lumineers (Love that paint). I found an "Animals of the World"
puzzle book at Borders on the clearance rack, I took the North American Animal puzzle out and measured and trimmed it to fit the front cover of my book, I put a coat of Gel Medium on the back of the puzzle (just to hold it together and make it easier to handle). When my paint was dry I glued the puzzle on with Gel Medium...then I used my new Japanese Screw Punch (gotta' love it)to drill holes through the puzzle and the cover to accommodate the Wood letters (I stained the letters Green with Golden Glazes). I attached the letters with Brass Brads....I think it worked out pretty well.
The Brass Brads holding on the wood letters on the front came through to the inside of the cover, so I needed some way to cover those and make them stationary at the same time so I put some "glops" of gel medium over the brads and stuck down some silk leaves over the brad backs. I decided it looked a little plain so I drizzled some glue around on the leaves and sprinkled on some seed beads. It is always important to put your name and address in an altered book that is going to travel, because if it should become separated from its packaging (for any one of a million reasons) then the post office would know where it belongs and hopefully return it to you. So I wrote my name and address in "Green Sparkle Gel Pen"...my grand daughter is into Gel Pens...so I have become the owner of a set of gel pens...gotta' love'm. I use them all the time now...ABs and journals...they are awesome. On the first page I used Golden Glazes for the back ground and the gel pens to write in the name of my book. I also glued some leaves and beads on this page to make the spread cohesive. To finish up I used some little butterfly stamps, that I have had for centuries, and Green Distress Inks to kinda' pull it all together.