Yes, I'm Still Here.......

......and can't believe it's been more than a week since my last post.  First I was out of town on family related business, and then I was too exhausted from that, and then it was suddenly Thanksgiving.
That's it for me; I'm all out of excuses.
Right before I left I received Elena's journal from our asian themed round robin group, and today I finished my pages.

Above is my two page spread.  Elena had requested that we have a black border or frame, so I cut my watercolor paper about an inch smaller than her book and used black distress stain to make the border.

What I like most about these pages is that I think that everything I used on them is something that I received from a friend.  Here are closer views of the two pages:

The first layer on the paper is a bunch of small squares cut from colored paper I received from Lee.  Over that a coat of thinned out gesso, followed by some asian text from a newspaper I got from Teri.  The gold and orange you see is joss paper and I think I got that from Sox.  The bamboo is from a decorative napkin and if I'm not mistaken, Elena sent that to me.  The beautiful images of the Japanese books are from a catalog that Kyoko brought all the way from Japan and gave to me on the cruise.

For better or worse, the haiku is all mine.  I know Elena loves to read, which was the inspiration for these pages.