Altered book - Readers Journal

It is Australia Day here.  Our National day to celebrate being an Australian.  After a late sleep in; brunch of bacon and eggs on the Barbie; taking the family to the movies; shortly an afternoon nap; then a walk on the beach, followed by snags, coleslaw and potato salad!

Here is what I was really going to write about - altered Books!

 

Altered Books - I love them!  The whole idea of taking an otherwise useless, unwanted book and turning it into something both beautiful and with a purpose is very satisfying for a bibliophilelike myself! 

How did I create this?  These are the steps I followed:

1. I found a foreign language book ( in german) at the op shop for 50c.  It had to be hardback, not too big, not too small, and stiched binding.  ( If you bend back the covers a little make sure you can see stitches - otherwise it is glued and will fall apart!)

2. I tore/cut out some of the pages - maybe 1 in 4 or 5.  Leaving the end pages intact.

3. I glued together some of the pages - mainly because I was experimenting.  If you do glue some together becuase you want them extra thick make sure you close the book up and press hard - to get the pages aligned, otherwise you'll end with crinkles.

4. Add gesso.  This is optional.  I gessoed every page in this book.  I left interesting images so they became a feature of a page.

5.  Add some colour - I used cheap acrylic, and a credit card using a few colours on the page, and then scraping.  That way it is very thin and dries very quick, and  you get nice marbling paint effects.

6. Add embellishments:

* tags - I tagged every page, using cardboard offcuts, thick scrapbooking paper, and other found opjects.  All just stapled on using a vintage stapler that has bronze coloured staples!

* interesting papers

* stamps

* your own doodles

* add more paint to blend things in together

* try adding some black ink from a ink pad or distressing ink

As I intended this book to be used as a readers Journal ( where I record each book I read and a few thoughts about it, I wanted to be sure I had plenty of writing space.  You can add as much collage / embelishments as you desire!  Just make sure you can still close the book without forcing the spine or it will break.  Mine is borderline, but if I treat it gently it should be O.K.

Things I really love about this book: the thick pages, all the tags, and the quirky cat drawings all throughout!  It just has a very satisfying feel in your hands!