Category Archives: altered book

Altered book: Project 1 – stage 5

altered book, day of the dead, dia de los muertos, project, stage 5

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Brrrrr it is still freezing in my craft room so I haven’t been doing much in it lately. I did finish this double page layout in my altered book project a few days ago though called The day of the dead (Dia de los muertos). The actual event takes place over a few days – people celebrate the lives and deaths of their relatives and welcome their departed spirits to visit on all souls day. It is a bright and colourful event. People decorate alters with marigolds and offerings of food such as bread and sugar skulls with which to honour their deceased loved ones. You may recall that some time ago I made an ATC with the same theme, well I used some of the card I printed out for that ATC to cut out the small skulls in the alter here (waste not want not). The PS brushes used were from Mel (many thanks Mel).

Materials: Day of the dead material, vellum, white and black card, black gesso, Stampin up book plate, black lace trim, gold trim, brass metal piece, brad, peel-offs, gems, computer generated text and small skulls.

Altered book: project 1- stage 4

altered book, niche, project 1, stage 4

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So had you forgotten all about this then? My altered book project has been just sitting in a box waiting for me to have time to tinker with it. This is stage 4: make a niche. My niche as you can see is forming a grave. Please forgive the photo (5th attempt and there are still shiny areas – I tried with flash on and flash off, lights on and lights off then finally with just the poor light from the window behind it and flash on!).

I really like grave yards as they are always tranquil places to sit or stroll through and it doesn’t matter if they are kept neat and tidy; sometimes the wilder they are – the more wildlife friendly they are. I have used a daisy trim on the grass – pushing up daisies (get it?). The skeleton is just a plastic one bought from the pound shop around Halloween time.

Here is how I made the niche:

Using a pencil and ruler I marked out a rectangle where I wanted to cut the niche from and made sure there was enough room for the articles being secreted away there.
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I placed a cutting mat under a few sheets at a time and using a sturdy craft knife (or carpet knife) and a metal edged ruler I cut out the rectangles. Keep going until the required depth. To glue them together, with mod podge, I just glued the inside edges and the outside edges rather than the whole page to reduce wrinkling.
I painted the inside of the niche a nice muddy brown colour using a mixture of brown acrylic paints. The head stones are photos of real headstones printed on white card and aged even more with distress inks. The left hand page was painted black, then an orange border rub-on added and coloured with alcohol inks. Using quite a dry brush I painted over the black with perfect pearls. Stamped the Grave tidings in versamark and swished over some green perfect pearls. The dragon is stamped using black ink. The right hand side is paper that looks a bit like grass darkened down with distress inks.

Altered book: project 1- stage 3

altered book, stage 3

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The first two pages are what I consider to be my title pages where I used a T.S. Eliot quote for as my inspiration. I have tried to portray the circle of life idea where death may look bleak and black but in death are the beginnings of life. So the background is quite gloomy but I have highlighted small areas with fluorescent crayons and stickles.

I painted the pages with white Gesso then sprayed with Slate chroma jewels and sprinkled with salt while the slate was still wet to create the background. Using a couple of Tim Holtz masks I created a border down the left side and across the corner of the right side with Distress ink fired brick. I moved the mask a couple of mm down the left side and went over it again with dark red ink to give a highlighted effect. The top right corner is sprayed with Adirondack colour wash Denim.
The stamped images are all in black document ink and they were highlighted with crayons. I added a few dots of distress stickles for the butterfly and tiny flowers.
I had put stickles on the ravens wings but didn’t like it so I removed it when still wet and it took some of the blue colour away which left an interesting effect.
The quote was printed onto white paper – ripped then coloured with distressing inks antique linen, frayed burlap and stippled lightly with black soot. This was then sprayed with fluorescent paint. The cross was stamped using black Stazon onto acetate which was coloured using stickles on the back side.

Inks: Distress inks; antique linen, frayed burlap, fired brick, black soot, Black document ink, red ink, black Stazon
Card: the inside cover and first page, white paper, acetate
Stamps: non sequitur Grave tidings, Stampers anonymous Urban tapestry and Faiytale frenzy, Celtic cross (unknown)
Other: Tim Holtz border masks, Distress stickles worn lipstick and antique linen, stickles lime green and fruit punch, spray paints; chroma jewels slate, Adirondack colour wash denim, fluorescent pink and yellow, torn black mesh

Altered book: project 1 – stage 1 and stage 2

altered book, project 1, stage 1, stage 2

Altered books? Why? I don’t get it – what is the point of altering a book? I guess I am just going to have to do one to find the answer.
I found this great site to get a few pointers.

This is not a tutorial but more like a ‘what not to do’ when altering a book as I am bound to make loads of mistakes and possibly some ‘happy accidents’ along the way. Please join me on my mini adventure into the world of Altered Books.

I have no plan and no idea what I will do but I DO have a book so here goes!
take one book
Stage 1.
The book is a hard back, Innocent Blood by P.D James, and no I have not read it but have nicked it from my husband Harry. Don’t worry though he was just going to throw it out anyway.
I ripped some pages out of the book to allow for the extra thickness created by some of the altered pages possibly being thicker or having 3D embellishments on them.

Stage 2.
I have had a wee think about themes and have decided on Death! I know that sounds a bit macabre but it doesn’t need to be, after all death is just an altered state of life.

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I painted the cover all over with black Gesso to prime it and once it was dry I roughly painted with distress crackle paint aged mahogany keeping some areas lumpy and some quite flat to add a bit of texture. After it was dry and the cracks appeared I then painted over some areas with acrylic crimson, sprayed with a little water and smudged it into some of the cracks. To darken it all down (it was a little too pink still) I used the direct to paper technique and swiped some distress inks, aged mahogany and black soot, over the top then wiped the excess away.
I know it looks like a right old mess just now but I will leave it like that for the time being and add the embellishments later.