It's Crunch Time!

New class projects will be revealed at the "Falloween Project Premiere" event at The Little Blue House next Saturday, Sept. 21. So, needless to say, I am hip-deep in paper, glue, paint, Stickles, ink etc. busily creating! And, I can't share any of this until after "Falloween," so I will share photos of a project from another swap I was in recently.

This was a one-on-one swap for an online group and it was for an altered slide mailer and slide(s). These cardboard mailers come with one, two, three or even four openings to insert a glass slide. They open like a book. The theme was simply "garden."

This is the cover of the one I sent to my partner. I painted both front and back with green metallic paint and attached part of a pretty iris napkin, edged with gold Krylon pen and coated with a sparkly glaze to give it some shimmer. The spine is covered with a strip of washi tape and I added an old stamp.

Front cover

Back cover

 Here are a few shots of the inside. I used the same metallic green paint inside and continued the washi tape along the spine to reinforce it.  I stamped the definition of "flower" on the left side.  I decorated both sides of two pieces of cardstock the size of the slides (the left is a watercolored stamp and the right one has a "real" stamp, a bird rubon and the word iris cut out). I sandwiched them each between two slides, wrapping the edges with gold tape to enclose them. In order to keep them in place, but be easily removable, I used a glue dot on the back of each.

Here is the lovely mailer I received back (thank you Nancy!). The entire mailer is painted and then layered with papers. I love the quote on the cover.

Front cover

This is the inside. Love that fairy image! Both slides were enclosed in the mailer slots and tiny microbeads surround them - really pretty!

Inside "pages"

And, for a little extra, Nancy included this gorgeous encaustic wax tag - beautiful!

Girlfriends encaustic tag

If you've never joined a swap before, it's great fun and a good way to exchange art and ideas with others.