My pages for the tallest handmade book....

...are all finished and ready to be sent to Oregon (a place I've always wanted to visit, but my pages will have to go there on my behalf)

I look forward to seeing them in the finished book, some time next year. 

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, a clickety click on the logo below will explain everything:

It's been simultaneously liberating, and difficult, to work completely without a brief or a theme - I'm so used to doing themed circle journals, that being told I can do absolutely anything I want left me a little rabbit-in-the-headlights to start with.

So I started with imagery and themes that I'm very familiar with, things that are very "me", like a slightly darker, more grungy re-work of my Don't Blink canvas:

And this page using my favourite orca stamp (which I've blogged already but here it is for completeness)


Next I found a great headline in one of my old, old books (this one's from the late 1800s) - "Ventriloquism, and how to acquire the art"- and paired this with an image of some rather creepy puppets for the page at the top of this post.

And finally, some fun with layers of image transfers and texture and a creepy plague doctor:

I think that these four are fairly representative of my usual style, and the kinds of imagery and colours I respond to, which is what I was aiming for.

Now to pop them in the post...

Fancy being in the Guinness Book of Records???

....that is of course depending on the book of records having a section for tallest handmade book.....

but regardless, please check out the Tallest Handmade Book In The World project over at the Altered Bits blog - and I'm sure you'll be as excited as I am about the whole thing, and hopefully want to join in

We are each to make 4 pages (well, I'm sure you can make more if you get the urge, but I'm just aiming for the 4 at least to start with)

I've finished off my first page today, using my favourite Haida orca image (this is one of the orcas I have tattooed on my back, and the wonderful Michelle Ward was kind enough to hand carve me a stamp to match, lucky me!!)

I'm not sure yet what's going on the other three pages....I'm not going to bother trying to connect them in theme as they could well end up separated in the final book depending on how the signatures are made up.

But I want all the pages to be very "me" - so I'm thinking stone angels and skulls in the mix somewhere....

Can't wait to see the final book - here's hoping it gets to ceiling height! :D