Finally, snow!

The past couple of days we've seen snow which is definitely a change from the warmer temperatures we've had much of the past couple of months.  The estimate is that we got 6 inches today, and probably about 2 inches Thursday night into Friday.  Not a bad total for two days.

Most of the people here at the Manor dislike the snow and cold.  Not surprisingly.  I imagine as one grows older, one's body becomes less able to deal with colder temperatures.  I wouldn't know--I'm well insulated!  And I don't think most drivers appreciate snow--it's of course hard to drive in.  I know that today, when my friend Karen was driving me home from the studio (we closed early because of the weather), we had a couple of moments where we wondered if we were going to slide into an accident.

Although I was disappointed that no one came to the studio for Saturday's morning activities, I was glad that we closed the place down early.  It gave me a chance to come home and do my weekly chores, attempt to make pork wontons, and play with the kitties.

It also has given me a chance to work on a project.

Now that I am running the Saturday programs at the studio, I'm spending much more time searching for activities that are good for kids and adults.  Today's activity was to be the tissue paper plates I talked about earlier this week.  Since nobody came, I'm going to push that to February, no problem, since next week we're supposed to make valentines.

One project I want to introduce in February for adults is altered board books.  These are the board books so popular for teaching young children to read.  Since I do believe that there should be an example of the project so that people can see what can be done, this week I started working on altering a board book.  It's going to be in a green color scheme.  I finished laying down the backgrounds last night--they're very simple, just green papers glued on to the book pages.

This afternoon, taking advantage of the kitties sleeping, I started embellishing the pages.  I've started four, so far.  I am not doing this with any great plan.  Just embellishing as I go and I'll figure out what the theme will be once I do the first layer of embellishments.  But I can definitely say that it's in my usual style.  It'll be fun to see how this book turns out.

What I would have liked to have done at the outset was cut the book apart and then rebind the pages.  But I decided against that.  That will be for a future board book.

Several years ago I did several altered books, but got out of this particular craft--I must admit that I bore quickly.  Now, thanks to becoming the Saturday activity coordinator at the studio, I seem to have rediscovered something I used to enjoy.  I can't wait to see what happens.

I don't have any scans of the book ready, since the pages are sticky, but I will scan it when it's finished.

In the meantime this is a page from one of those older altered books.  The book I altered was a biography of Katharine Hepburn that I had picked up at Savers.  The project was a round robin with a theme of "remarkable women."  Well, the most remarkable woman I know is my mother.  So that was the theme for all the pages I did for this project, a set of two for each participant's book.  This would have been done in 2008, I think.

My mother's favorite color was blue, hence the color scheme.  The frames around the photos were hand cut out of blue scrapbook paper.  The documents are copies of my mother's confirmation and death certificates, which I attempted to age using Tim Holtz' distressed inks.  It didn't turn out too badly, I guess.