Pages from an unfinished altered book

This page started with leaves I printed onto fcotton fabric and embellished with
thread work,
beading,
leaves,
rick rack and fibers
flowers and ephemera.




My images, my inspiration is almost always women.

This page is based on a Virgina Woolf quote,

"One is not born a woman
but rather becomes a woman."

This year I joined a couple of Yahoo groups, altered books (AB) first, and then clothpaperstudio (CPS). Both are populated by warm and friendly, talented and generous individuals whose work is inspiring. I've been a 'lurker' for most of the time I've been a member on both groups but just this summer I decided to participate in the 'themed swaps' on CPS. The current swap has a simple theme: PINK. This evening I rummaged through my stash to assemble some nifty items to mail on Monday.

I chose a silk blank (hand-dyed with cochineal);

a commercial garden print in pink-orange tones;

pink and pink & white ribbons;

an array of papers of various weights - solids, prints, florals, stripes, and borders; victorian, post-modern and atomic patterns;

some ephemera and found items in shades of pink.

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In June, my family celebrated my Mom's 85th birthday with a surprise party and family dinner at the Old Mill in Westminster, Massachusetts. My 5 siblings; their spouses and children and even great-grandchildren brought the party to nearly 30 strong and ranged in ages from 2 years to 92 years. It was a fine, happy day.

I created a memory-lane guest book with places for each family member to leave a personal message.

I used a commercial spiral bound scrap book that I found in JoAnn's.

I used a variety of things to embellish the pages:
pictures both original and reproductions;
purchased and found objects;
fabric flowers;

buttons, rub-ons and more.

It was fun sorting through old pictures and making selections;

playing my own solitary memory lane game.

In the book, I traced my mother's journey starting with the earliest picture I had through to the present year.

Images showed her as a young girl of 16;
as a bride;
as a new mom in 1944 and 1946;
and with her expanding family in the 50s and 60s when 4 more children were added.

In addition to the pages with pictures,

I left space for personal messages.
On this page I affixed ephemera from World War II for the message.

The V-Mail is pristine and never-used from a stationery set that I acquired at a yard sale.

I left some pages only minimally embellished;

these were designated for memories or stories.

Each section of the memory book, is divided and identified by its contents.