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!
