An Altered Door

I've been busy with a number of projects lately - finished up five (or was it six?) ArtCharm swaps with Amber Dawn's I.C.E. group (I.C.E. is short for International Charm Exchange), finally finished my Angel Tags and Snowflake ATCs for my Altered Art Swaps group, AND I, uh, altered, yeah, that's it, ALTERED, Emily's door.

Archer had attacked her door with some sort of blunt instrument, resulting in a number of holes...additionally, he'd scrawled colored markers on it, and used her address stamp a few times to make sure it was thoroughly tagged. Em's been unhappy with her door ever since, so I took some time last week to do a serious makeover on it. Here are the pictures, before and after.

The details: We spritzed and wiped down the door before we began. It was primered already. I used the cheapest wood glue I could find from the dollar store, and thinned it down with some water, about 50/50 water and glue. I used the kid's paintbrushes, 'cause I don't want glue gunking up MY brushes. We brushed the glue mix on the door, laid down the papers, then brushed more glue mix on top of them. I think I also did an extra coat of glue on top of everything once it was all down, to help protect it (but that was a week ago, so I can't remember for sure, LOL). I think Emily didn't know what to expect when I first suggested the idea of collaging her door, but she's delighted with the new look!

The strategy: I dug into my extensive stash of vintage foreign texts, handmade papers, ephemera, pictures, magazine clippings, vintage music, scrapbook paper, pages from a weekly calendar, wrapping paper, and selected a few little embellishments to dress up Emily's door and make it a little more presentable. We started on the "back" side of the door first, the side that Emily sees when she's in her room. Emily helped glue stuff down, as did Jerry. Archer's excited to start on his door - I've got a bag filled with papers and ephemera to use on his door. I pasted big text pages down first, then did doodles or small pictures on top. I also used mesh tape and joint compound to fill in the holes. We pressed the paper down, so it would conform to the door's molding detail. Enough talk, here are the pictures: