Second on the 2nd: a miniature altered book

 

For my Second on the 2nd, I normally repost something that matches the host of Art Journal Journey.  This month my friend and fellow co-administrator Valerie is our host and I couldn't really find anything to match her theme, which is When One Door Closes, Another One Opens.  Instead, some of you who visit Art Journal Journey a lot may have noticed we are now accepting mini journals and altered books.  Therefore, I decided to share this mini altered book with you for my second look.  I have copied it in its entirety.  It is from June, 2008 and called:

Cancelled stamp altered book: what fun

My friend Theresa (link removed by me) and I have been talking on the phone a great deal lately. Late at night, when most people are asleep, she and I talk. She asked me if I had lots of postage stamps, and I thought she meant uncancelled ones. However, after a few missteps and lots of laughing over misunderstanding, she told me she would include her mini altered book when her dad returned to Wichita in a few weeks.

Theresa's instructions were simple. No specific theme, but all spreads must center around cancelled postage stamps. I spent most of the day Saturday going through my many cancelled stamps and coming up with the following spreads.

It probably isn't wise to start with the plainest spread, but it's the first one in Theresa's book. After I found the stamp, I searched through the entire book for artwork that would compliment the Mercury stamp. I mounted the stamp on some hand painted (by me) fabric. For some reason, I didn't want to clutter the image and couldn't think of any phrase that wouldn't distract from the opposing spread. For me, this page was finished.

One of my favorite spreads, I started with a red napkin background and added several stamps. The ones on the right are supposed to be packages under the tree, an angel topping the sticker tree, and an old Christmas ornament hanging from a bough. I ran into problems when it was time to add the phrase on the left. Red is a difficult color to match, so I took the other half of the napkin and glued it to a piece of plain printer paper. Then I printed the sentiment and cut it out. Voila!! Everything matched.

I'm not a Disney fan, but I have a friend who sends me letters and packages with Disney stamps. Since I never throw anything away, I luckily found the larger images in a 1970 catalogue on stamp collecting. I used some Basic Grey scraps for the background and some wonderful Dymo tape that Theresa sent me along with the book. I absolutely LOVE this tape, since it's see-through. How cool is that? From a theme I would never have imagined possible, this became one of my favorite spreads. The bonus to all this is that Theresa loves Disney, so I'm sure she'll appreciate this one, too.

Remember when the biplane stamps came out in 2003 celebrating the Wright Brothers 100 years of flight? I saved this part, and I'm glad I did. Then I used every airplane and pilot stamp I had. I started with a dyed paper towel background, which turned out to be just the "Wright" color for the spread. The "via air mail" stickers are from the 70s. Although it's hard to read (I hate my handwriting), the sentiment reads "See what they started."

When I found this image, which is actually the sticky side of the previous spread, it still had an uncancelled stamp attached. I just replaced it with a cancelled one and placed the entire spread over another of my hand dyed paper towels.

I have a friend who had postcards that she just cut the uncancelled stamp images from and gave them to me without using the postage. I couldn't believe it, but these $0.20 stamps on the right are actual postage stamps. On the left is another image from the 1970 stamp collection book. I was surprised to note that the large and colorful $0.15 image from 1970 morphed into the $0.80 monochromatic image from Mt. McKinley we are all too familiar with. The background is dressmaker patterns and some hand painted paper.  Once again, I was pleased to see that the orange Dymo tape that Theresa sent matched perfectly with the images. By being see-through, I didn't have to worry about losing part of the images.

I had a lot of fun making these. I would have made about a dozen more if time permitted. But, I have other projects to start and finish, so I sadly must return this lovely mini altered book to its mailing container and put it in the box that Theresa's dad will pick up tomorrow.

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I hope you enjoyed this look back at the pages in this miniature book I altered for my friend using postage stamps.  I also hope this encourages you to create pages in a mini altered book or art journal, too.

 

Now it's time to share your own Second on the 2nd.  The rules are quite simple and everyone is welcome to join the fun look back.  All you have to do is bring back a post that you are especially proud of, or perhaps one you shared before anyone knew your blog existed.  Any post, any genre, any artistic endeavor is acceptable, as long as it's been published sometime in the past.  Then link below (direct links only, please) and Bleubeard and I, along with other Second on the 2nd friends, will be by to visit.