my "altered" ego

Nathan and I are kind of an artsy couple. He loves pottery, and I love collage art. One of my favorite ways to release my creative energy is working on my altered books.

For those of you who don't know what an altered book is-- here is the definition I found online.
"An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its original form into a different form, altering its meaning.

An altered book artist takes a book (old, new, recycled or multiple) and cuts, tears, glues, burns, folds, paints, adds to, collages, rebinds, gold-leafs, creates pop-ups, rubber-stamps, drills, bolts, and/or be-ribbons it. The artist may add pockets and niches to hold tags, rocks, ephemera, or other three-dimensional objects. Some change the shape of the book, or use multiple books in the creation of the finished piece of art.

Altered books may be as simple as adding a drawing or text to a page, or as complex as creating an intricate book sculpture."

I hadn't really had a chance to work on my book since I got married, but when we cleaned out our junk room, and I had to reorganize all my art supplies, the creative bug bit me, and I had to bust out all my stuff.

Here are some pictures of a few pages from my book.

Inside the front cover is mirror with a collage border that says "What matters the most is how you see yourself" with a green collage of pictures of myself on the opposite side.

I love circles.

This page isn't quite finished yet- but I really like the progress I've made so far.

So there it is- I have a bunch of other pages in progress right now. I don't know if I'll ever "finish." Nothing too amazing-I'm not a professional artist by any means, but it's what I love to do! Just thought I'd share. =)