alicia's final contributions to deb's book: through the eye glass (part 1 of 2)

so sorry but this is going to have to be a two part installation, part two being posted in a day or four.

i am finally pretty much finished with deb's book "through the eye glass". i had initially come up with several ideas, but the day or so before it arrived she asked me "where are you going to take damien and maude?" oh... hmmm. i hadn't thought of that. so gears shifted and plans changed... except this one.

"page" one has two doors. a top door that opens from right to left like a book, and a door at the bottom that opens from the top down (shown in a previous post). the contents of the bottom door will be revealed later as it's still in the works.

debs likes "tiny details" so i tried to incorporate as many tiny things as my patience would allow... like little tiny silk flower knots.

and little tiny crackles on the petri dish i incorporated into the page...

the petri dish lid is another door, that opens once you unsnap the lion's head pull that you can just barely make out on the right.

inside, you see a cameo of maude's profile. you'll learn more about this later. this piece an (of course) be removed from its petri dish enclosure.

the cameo piece itself opens up to reveal a sweet little heart -- an obvious symbol of love. :) it fits the story, promise.

on the back of the cameo piece is another wee pocket with a note from damian. leave me alone about the handwriting please and thank you. :) i worked for FOUR HOURS to have male victorian era handwriting and failed, so gave up.

open the whole top door, and this is what you see:

on the left, a collection of tickets and such, with a scroll of sorts beneath.

detail of the scroll closure:

the scroll...

it unrolls to be about 22 inches long and is a series of diary entries that tell of their travels and all that they collect along the way. there isn't a treasure in the box that you'll have to wonder where it came from... well, maybe one or two but that would be intentional.

the other side is a treasure box. (debs! you asked me "can you sneak that wee frog on there? -- i did!) this is a collection of things from around the world that will be revealed in the diary pages.

the locket opens to reveal damian. yeps, i stole that photo from lisa's photo of what she did in this very book. we need a wee bit o' consistency, right?

i had a huge amount of fun making the hinges for the top (the lace is very stained and the metal rusty and patinaed in a gorgeous way, but you can not tell here for some reason.

oh, here you can, kind of:

next post will be a quick follow up of what's in the bottom box, and what the back is all about. i may do a video as well so the flow of the book is more obvious. peek back soon.