A two-fer: Journal 52's 11th entry and a holiday spread in my collage AB

At Journal 52 this week, Chelle gave us Stars as the prompt.  I ran my options through my mind and thought about movie and television stars, but dismissed that when I realized I knew exactly what I needed to create.

This represents the Seal of Kansas as well as Kansas' motto.  I painted the manilla folder background using pink, light blue, and dark blue, then added a bit of red and yellow, two of the colors that are found in the seal.  I used all my "a," "r," and "p" stickers on this spread.  That's one way to use up what at one time, I had lots of.

Here you see the seal and the motto, which reads "Ad Astra per Aspera," Latin for "To the Stars Through Difficulties."  There are 34 stars on the seal, showing Kansas was the 34th state to join the Union.  The scene represents Kansas as it looked back in 1861, and the date it entered Statehood.  The scene includes a sunrise that shines down on a farmer plowing a field near his log cabin, a steamboat sailing one of the rivers, Native Americans hunting buffalo, and a wagon train heading west.  I have no idea what the mountains represent, because they are nonexistent in our current landscape.

The 11 represents Journal 52's eleventh prompt, and the translation is my feeble attempt at a bit of journaling.   As always, I thank you for visiting, because I am not a member of Facebook or Flickr, two media sites you must join in order to show your weekly entry.

As promised, I have also created a St. Patrick's Day spread in my collage altered book.  It was bad enough I missed the Ides of March.  There was no way I was letting another holiday go by, even though I'm quite certain I'm no more Irish than I'm related to Bleubeard.

It's hard to put a spread into context when the pages are too large to fit on the scanner.  That's why I took this picture so you could see both pages as one spread.  Who knew the Irish could be so philosophical?

It's amazing what lighting does for a spread.  This is the left side

and this is the right side, which I cut off in my photo above.  Enjoy your St. Patrick's Day, especially if you start the day with green eggs and ham!