Monday, June 21, 2010

Are You Ready for Halloween?

Sometimes when you work on art projects, you're out of sync with the time of year. Today is the first day of summer, the longest day of the year. But what day am I creating for? Halloween. I'm part of an altered book swap, which is hosted by a local scrapbook store, Everything Scrapbook and Stamps. Each month, we meet and trade books with one another. Everyone's book is different: one woman used an old encyclopedia; another used a blank book; I'm using a cookbook. We pick a theme for our own books, alter a couple of pages, then send it on its way. Over the next year, 12 women will get my book and add a few decorated pages to it. Since I used a cookbook, my theme is "Memorable Meals." I've asked each artist to describe a memorable meal: memorable because of its setting, the food, or your companions. Hopefully I'll get some good stories to go along with it.

Back to Halloween -- one woman has chosen Halloween for the theme of her book, which is a novel by Joseph Kellerman called The Web. I decided to include some ghost stories with my pages, which I found on the internet. I altered the pages with distress ink and used a sharpie for the words. If you're ready to get in the Halloween mood, you can find some ghost stories here.