Back to School - altered board book

Getting together with other artists to create on a regular basis one to one is very inspiring. I am fortunate to belong to two local groups of mixed media an altered art groups. Some months we challenge each other with certain projects. Other times we are involved in round robins. In the next few week I would like to share a couple of those projects with you.

The first is an altered child's board book. The challenge was to use four pocket type templates at least five times in an altered book. We were given the templates and given two months to complete out book and bring it back to share. Many of the girls - myself included - have a technique altered book that we just constantly add to or try new things in. For this challenge I decided just to do a separate book with pockets as the structure theme.

I chose a board book, I have a whole basket of them I am trying to wheedle down to a manageable size. I also, had cleaned out and sorted most of my 12 by 12 inch papers and decided to use some of the older paper I had been hoarding. After looking at my paper the school theme was where it was going.

The next thing was to pick out some images and start. I had been going through the cabinet card collection and sorting them, too. I found a lot of teachers and young women who could have been teachers. Those would be my starting point. This book would be a little reminder for a retiring teacher - her colleagues and a postcard or letter from a student or parent. So this is what I came up with.