I’ve had a love of lions since I was a kid because I was born under the astrological sign of Leo. I have also always wanted one as a pet because taking a lion for a walk would be so cool, at least until it decided to eat someone, or someone’s dog, or me. I have a whole list of inappropriate pets but for now I’m maintaining things at one small bird and two small fish. But I digress…

I think the significance of lions as my birth sign made it difficult to settle on just the right setting for this wooden lion in an altered book. I tried to make him a home in about three or four of the previous books but nothing felt right. I ended up doing a bit of internet research on lions to help inspire me but the reality of the situation for these creatures in the wild is quite depressing. They once ranged all over parts of Europe, Asia, India and all of Africa and now have mostly been wiped out in the wild.

More of my research led me to the rich symbolism of lions. They are often called “King of the Jungle”, but this is a misnomer since they don’t live in jungles at all but prefer to dwell in savannah grasslands and semi-arid plains. In ancient cultures the lion is considered a solar animal symbol (Leo is a sun sign) but lions are actually nocturnal. I took all of these bits of information and tried to incorporate them into the imagery of the book.

The rolled pages with brown leaves stamped on them became the grassy plains and also reference the jungle, while the stylized wood pieces (from a musical instrument) are the palace of the king of beasts. The two tarot cards were a lucky find so that I could include both the sun and the moon in the book. The crown on the lion’s head was the finishing touch that I added as an afterthought but it gives it the right bit of whimsy and ties things together.

Materials used: book, tarot cards, wooden toy lion, wooden musical instrument parts, Japanese paper, rubber stamp and ink, and gel medium.

First off the basic idea of this book, the style of folding the pages, was completely inspired by a wonderful altered book by Sharon McCartney. I liked the shape created by folding the pages in half lengthwise and tucking each one into the book. I also loved the idea of creating a niche within folded pages to contain an object instead of ones glued together flat as I’ve done in the past.

This work started out as a home for a wooden lion, and then was briefly destined to be a home for a wooden kangaroo. Neither seemed quite right so I brought out the stack of teacups to play with. These little teacups have been waiting in the wings for awhile to make their way into a book. I wanted them to be stacked irregularly, and with this book I managed to pull it off. Only the cups at the top and the bottom of the stack are attached to the book, the rest float freely and can twirl and twist in place. (See the video at the bottom of this blog post for a demo.)

I was thinking about the idea of “tea time” as I worked on this, so I chose a few small gears from my collection of watch parts to decorate the end pages along the side. There are also two small spoons to tie into the tea theme. I bought these from RubyDog’s Art House as part of a tiny cutlery set, and the spoons are my favorite.

To demonstrate the moving part in this altered book I shot this quick video using my laptop’s built in camera. You’ll need to turn the sound up on your computer because it’s a bit quiet.

Materials used: book, card stock, watch gears, metal spoon, ceramic teacups, rubber stamp & ink, metallic paper decorations, and gel medium.

This is the second of the blank books I am working with to create a series using imagery of trees and birds. I don’t think this one is as successful as the first book and the more I look at the finished product the less I like it. The different elements don’t quite come together and the branches look like antenna sticking out of the top of the book. I think I will work on this one a bit more…

The cover image is another of my black & white tree photos taken with a Holga camera. I wanted to have the doorway cut directly into the trunk of the tree to create a sense of shelter for the nest inside. The two yellow feathers are from Yuuki the lovebird and the blue stone is actually a heart-shaped piece of beach glass I found on Bowen last year. The nest came fully formed from Michael’s craft store, where I went a few weeks ago looking for supplies.

After gluing the pages together with gel medium I used a drill through the top of the book to create holes for inserting the branches. It worked better to start with a small drill bit and slowly make the hole larger rather than starting with the correct size. The paper didn’t have much resistance against the larger drill bit and I had to be careful not to destroy the book in the process.

I really like adding a little “something” to the sides of the book as a finishing touch to break up the white space, and have used rubber stamps on the last two books.

Materials used: blank book, ink jet print of holga photo, gel medium, tree branches, lovebird tail feathers, nest, beach glass, acrylic paint, rubber stamp and ink, decorative paper, and door transparency.