Where The Green Fern Grows

This is the inside back cover of my AB for the ICE in Altered Books Group Round Robin...We are mailing today and everyone is very excited to get this project rolling.

This lizard image was a B&W pic from a book I got at a used book store called "Book Trader". The book title is " World of Strange Animals" and I bought the book ($2) to use as an Altered Book...but when I chose my theme (nature) for the RR on the ICE Group, I remembered buying the strange animal book and looked in it for pics to use in the ICE Group book...Only problem was that most of the pics were black & white, and you know me..."gotta' have that COLOR"...so I used my gel pens to color the Iguana and write my introduction and instructions for my book. Then I sprayed it with clear cote sealer...gel pens don't always dry real fast and can be sticky for a while...but the sealer took care of that problem. These Flamingos (on the left side of this spread) are from the same book as the lizard, and so is the big shell. I used gel pens to high light the pink in the Flamingos and I sewed and glued vintage pearls on the shell pic. I painted the whole spread with Golden Glaze, then I folded down the page to make a pocket. I added some feathers (I just love feathers, don't you?) and some beaded fringe that has little teeny tiny sea shells on the ends. There are small pink ribbon rose buds in the beaks of the Flamingos. I made some tags with the words "By The Sea, By The Beautiful Sea" and added those to the page. I'm not sure that you can see the beaded/teeny tiny sea shell fringe at the bottom of the page....but it is there... I added pink card stock to the back of the shell pic for stability because it hangs over the edge of the page. I found the pink poka-dot candle in my stash and I always think pearls look better by candle light.

This page is called bugs...the back ground paper is some of the great paper that I got at the Flax store in San Francisco...and the big red flower with the beetle came from the same book as the lizard, flamingos and shell (only it was already in color). The feathers are Wild Turkey feathers from a hunter friend of mine, he teaches with me at Rose State College and he brings me Pheasant and Turkey feathers every year...gotta love that. The brass metal leaves are from a wreath candle holder I got at the thrift store for .50....I just cut them off with wire cutters and flattened them with a hammer. I just love 50% off Senior Citizen Day at the thrift store...there are so many advantages to being a Senior Citizen....lol....really!