Round Robin Altered Book Pages - Pirates of the Caribbean

I promised to share a pic of my 2-page spread in Sue's Pirates of the Caribbean - this is her book in the Round Robin swap in which I'm participating! It's fun to be in this group - each one of us has a children's board book and the books are making a circuit of each participant. The owner/originator of the book has done the covers and each other member gets to alter a 2-page spread in each book! I showed the cover of my book in my posting called "Elvis Lives". And my entry in Korbyn's Vintage Christmas book last week.

So, (drumroll, please) here is my spread in Sue's Pirates of the Caribbean book:

This little beauty caused me no end of heartache. I had to re-work the design a couple of times - and I caught a stomach bug right in the middle of the last re-design! It was totally worth it, though. Most of the time I grow deeply attached to the pieces that I have the most trouble with - and this one i no exception. I hope Sue enjoys looking at it for years to come!

My Daughter: Budding Crafter

My daughter Rachael is 12 years old and a budding crafter! She loves paper crafting, cardmaking and scrapbooking as much as I do! We've now started sharing time in the tiny little corner - okay it's not so tiny - of the diningroom that I call "My Studio"! She's just too cute. I requested her assistance and writing skills for my May 2007 article for SSReflections.com. She wrote the Haiku that I used in the card samples.

She also wrote the letter in this page of the RR Christmas book that I just completed this week:

And while I was away at work, Rach made these awesome cards from stuff I had left over from my 2-page spread in the RR Pirates of the Caribbean book (more on that in a later post). As you can see, Rach has a real eye for combining and coordinating colors and values, and is quickly learning the basics of placement and design. And she loves using embellishments, but doesn't over-do it. I'm so proud of her.

Elvis Lives!

So, this is my inaugural posting on my blog and I decided to open it with one of my favorite things - altered board books. And swaps. And Elvis. Okay, three favorite things.

I joined a swap on SSReflections Yahoo Group - it's a Round Robin (RR) altered board book, and I chose my theme: Elvis' song titles and lyrics. My job was easy - do the front and back covers and send it on to the first of the other 5 participants in my RR group! They get to do the inner pages! This is going to be sooooo cool. I can't wait to see what the other gals in the group do to my book!

Here's the front cover:

And here is the back cover: