Kids' Class: Altered Niche Book

I finally finished the sample book for the class I'm teaching this summer for kids ages 10 and up. It's an altered niche book entitled "Secrets of Me." Each child will select three items that are symbols of his or her personality, preferences, experiences, or aspirations. They will "hide" those items in a niche in the back of their book, and then create a spread in the book that expands on the symbolism of each item.

Here is the niche spread in the back of my book, and the items revealed:





Here are the covers and the title page. The cover is textured with molding paste and items have been embedded in it, then it was painted with layers of acrylic paints to give it the look of something that might have been dug up from the earth.









The first spread corresponds with the elephant in my niche, which is a symbol I relate to. I've added words that reflect the qualities associated with elephants that I believe apply to me, as well as a hand-written note about my role as "memory keeper" for my family.





The second spread, with a pop-up I think the kids will enjoy constructing, corresponds to the four of cups tarot card I included in the niche. To me, this represents the four members of my immediate family, and the full "cup of life" I enjoy as a result of them.



The last spread expands on the little Buddha statue in my niche. It shows my interest in mythology and legends of gods and goddesses. I've used tags to tuck into the pockets on this page, but the kids will be able to insert any flat items they'd like here.





I am excited about taking this journey of art technique and self-examination with a group of motivated kids! For information on this class and how to sign up, go to Vita Explorations.

April Calendar Exchange: Angels

Well, I did it at the last minute, but I think my angel pages turned out okay. I decided to play with windows cut into the pages, since I had not seen that done in these calendars before.



For the first window, I sewed a metallic thread across, back and forth, to create a web-like effect:



The angel you see through the other side of the web window is part of another person's page.













Here are some close-ups of the quotes I used throughout:









I was pleased to find these quotes online, which seemed to fit the pages well.

So now I'm caught up with all my swaps, and it's only the 5th of the month! Not too bad. I so hate to be late.