This piece started out as a tall children's board
book that I got at a library book sale. As with the other two board
books I've done, because of all the niches and layering of pages,
careful planning is a must. I really spent a lot of time just staring
at the pages, trying to figure out where things were going, how deep
I'd have to cut, and so on, because once I start cutting through the
pages, I've really made a commitment. (Of course, if things go awry,
I can always toss the book and start again, right?)
I used a scrapbook template to
lay out the rectangles on the right page and the niche on the left. I
used a craft mat under each page as I cut through it with an exacto
blade. I tried to use the little exacto that I usually use, but the
blade was too dull. My husband came to the rescue with an industrial
strength exacto that has about twenty-five blades stored inside of
it. Wow, what a difference it made using this versus my little craft
knife! In addition to making the
window and niche you see on top, I also made slots on the sides of
the book in which to insert small tags with star related
quotations.
Once all the cutting was done,
I painted over the spread with Lumiere's acrylic paint. I mixed pearl
blue with super sparkle and pearl white. I have to tell you that I
covered most of the book with tissue paper and acrylic medium first,
because at that time, I wasn't sure what I was going to do for the
background. I had been thinking about just painting it. I didn't sand
or gesso this time, but the tissue and medium definitely gave this
slick board book some "tooth" for the additional papers to grab on
to.
I decided to go with a torn
paper collage for the background, so I went through all my papers and
found everything that was some shade of blue, silver or pearly white.
I used washi paper, magazine pages, old maps, stamps, wall paper,
napkins, and tissue paper and tore them into small pieces and laid
them in piles around my table. When my little piles were ready, I
started gluing the paper pieces down, going from white/light blue at
the bottom of the page, to dark dark blue at the top. As I applied
the papers, I wrapped them around any book edges and glued them
underneath.
When the paper was dry, I went
over some places with shades of blue F & W acrylic inks to unify
the papers and make them blend together a little better. I used
Leslie
Riley's method of image
transfer using an ink jet transparency to get the image of the globes
and trajectory lines onto the paper. And I also stamped some circle
and square patterns using different shades of blue ink pads. And I
stuck some tiny star stickers here and there across the
page.
On the right side I did the
following: I cut out the picture of the girl and glued it on top of
some silver flecked black paper. Then I glued this piece under the
window opening. I used Class A Peels stickers to create a border
around the picture. I used a piece of toile wrapped with blue wire
and star beads to make a curtain around the window. I also split a
Parchese game piece and glued it below the picture along with the
blue and silver stars.
On the left side: I used silver
tissue paper to wrap around the inside edges of the niche. I used a
piece of the book that I had removed to make the little shelf for the
bottles. I also covered this with silver tissue paper. The bottles
are filled with different art stuff and glued onto the shelf with gel
medium. That beautiful silver thread spilling out of the bottle is
actually kinked metal wire. I think it might be called sadi thread. I
also used gel medium to glue down the blue game pieces, the stars,
and the stamp, and that lovely blue starred ribbon at the bottom of
the page.
I have to mention and thank the
members of an Altered
Book Artists
embellishment swap for sending me some gorgeous items which I used in
this altered book. Two of the bottles, the blue game pieces, the silver
sadi
thread, the manilla tags, and some of the paper I used in the
collage, all came from that swap. So thank you ladies, wherever you
are, for helping to make this altered book and this altered book tutorial!
Once these pages were
decorated, I worked on the front and back covers. I tore some black
and silver marbled paper into pieces and glued them all around the
front and back of the book, again making sure to wrap the papers
around the edges of the pages. When dry, I glued all the board book
pages together with gel medium. The black is much blacker and the
silver is much more silvery than this picture shows.
Next, I wrote the title with a
silver Krylon leafing pen on a mica tile. I put glitter around the
edges and attached it to the cover using gel medium. I also rubbed a
few stars around the front.
Finally, I decorated the little
tags. I printed out my quotes from the computer onto fake parchment
paper, glued them onto the tags, and then decorated them with stamps,
glitter, paint, and paper. I also added some fibers at the top of
each tag. This book was so much fun to make, and the colors still look scrumptious
to me.
If you want to see the tags
close-up, visit my tag
art page. And if you
enjoyed this altered book tutorial, you might also like Altered Book Art :: 18 Wishes.
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