Book Box no.7 - A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

I must admit, I'm a bit late to the A Song of Ice and Fire party. I've been told many times I would love the books, but I always seemed to pick up something else to read. HBO has me hooked on the story now, and it won't be long before I've devoured each volume of the books. Our house is now filled with George R. R. Martin fans, so I decided it was high time to make a book box for us! Focusing on the first volume, A Game of Thrones, I jumped in with a Stark family dire wolf theme.

I wanted to create a wolf print in snow, so I started by adding the base ground. Using dried tea leaves as dirt and green flock, I created a nice approximation of earth. I added in some finely cut bits of silk floral leaves for grass blades.


Next, I made a mixture of baking soda and elmer's glue for snow, leaving most of the paw uncovered. After the initial paste dried, I went back over all of the snow and area of the paw with a thin layer of glue. On top of this, I poured baking soda, shaking to spread, and pouring out excess. I also had to touch up some of the snow on top of the "earth" with white paint, as the tea leaves ended up staining some of the glue yellow.

I decided to include the family words, "Winter is coming" on a curled ribbon of paper, as if it had been sent via raven. I hand wrote the calligraphy and tea stained the paper. I glued the slip into the box and glued areas of overlap to reinforce the curl.

The outside was painted in progressively lighter shades of gray - the lightest being white - using a sponge, and the page edges were painted in a very bright platinum. Over the page edges, I used a wash of white paint to dull portions of the metallic paint and simulate frost.

Finally, I used dark gray and white to create "cracks" for the front and back images as well as the title on the spine.

Done!

Things to remember:

• Why buy expensive modeling snow mixture? Make it out of baking soda.
• Dried tea leaves do look like dirt, but any media put on top may absorb the color and become tea stained.