Another Altered Book Journey

Hello my crafty friends! Welcome to my blog. As you can see by my lack of posts, the warmer the weather gets the less I craft. It's just too darn nice outside!

I am here to share another altered book....this one more of a diorama style.

I was inspired by this quote:

'I don't want to just read books, I want to crawl inside of them and live there.'

I love books.....all kinds of books but especially the old ones. The yellowed, musty pages and just so lovely. For this project I chose a 50 year old book on the "Principals of Economics". Snoresville, am I right? Perfect for taking an x-acto knife to and cutting a rectangle shape through the cover and about 2/3rds of the the way through the book.

I glued into my book a lovely forest scene from another old book that belongs to my craft bestie - Nicole Wright. I also borrowed her set of Stabilo 3 in 1 Woody Pencils to watercolour in my forest scene. These pencils are fantastic and keep their gorgeous bright colours even after they dry!

 Once this was dry I closed the book and used a white glue to seal all the edges of the book. A giant clip helped hold everything together while the glue dried.

Once everything was dry I started building my scene with moss, and pieces of wood from my stash. I added a few Tiny Tattered Flowers and Leaves and some Paper Dolls.

The quote that inspired this project was made using words I found in a couple of books I had.

I am so please with how this turned out. Another home decor item to add to my book shelf.

An Altered Book - The Castaways

Welcome back to my blog! things have been a bit quiet around here.

A word of warning before we continue - yes, an old book was altered, glued, torn and ripped in the making of this blogpost. Viewer discretion is advised. 

I have a lot of old books - some up to 100 years old - that I have collected over the years. Some I bought at garage sales, some of them once belonged to my grandfather and some were given to me by my crafty BFF, Nicole.

For this project I chose a book that came from my grandfather - The Castaways.

To begin I took the largest die from a rectangle nesting die set and traced out the shape on the front of the book, making sure to leave the title.
I took my x-acto knife and carefully cut out the traced shape from the cover. I made sure to a cutting pad under the cover before doing this.  Next I took my x-acto knife and trimmed a smaller sized rectangle shape through the first 50 pages or so.

To curl the pages - first I put my cutting pad in the book to protect the uncut pages; then i took my mister bottle and sprayed the pages a couple of times; next I took my fingers and gently starting curling the pages outwards. This took some time and required some additional sprays of water but I loved the results. while the paper was still wet I ran my Walnut Stain Ink pad over the curled pages and then let them dry.

My happy castaway couple is a card from the Found Relatives pack that I coloured with Distress Markers before adhering into my book behind the curled pages. Once I had this done I starting gluing these curled pages together along with the page with my castaways. Then I glue the lot to the front over. The remaining pages of the book were glued together in groups of 50 pages or so.

These became my journal pages - although I didn't actually journal as this was meant as a decorative piece. I did gesso the pages, add some Distress Oxide Ink, some stamping and then added some pieces that stick out the top and side edges.

Some of these pieces are die cuts, paper, vintage postcards and half of a stereoscope card. I happen to have a few of these and the palm tree one was perfect.

This is how the finished book looks and how it will be displayed. I just love all the bits and bobs peaking out of the pages.

To finish off the front cover I added a few of the wood starfish pieces from Southern Ridge Trading Co. They take paint very well and I love that they have a bit of dimension to them.