"Well-remembered" Altered Book Page

This is the latest page in my altered book.  The background is collaged book pages, white gesso, paints and stencils. The floral images are from a napkin and I stamped the friendship quote on a bit of the plain napkin and adhered it to the page.  The focal point image is from a Somerset Studio magazine which I loved and wanted to save. Since the girls needed to be grounded, I used a piece of an old book spine. I think the color coordinates well with the page.  Simple but fun!

Paper Dolls altered book page

The background of this page is texture paste through a Tim Holtz stencil with spray inks applied once it was dry. I also added Vintage Photo Distress ink to tone it down.

The "paper dolls" are created on a heavy card stock base and accordion-folded. I used scrapbook papers for the dresses, embellished with lace and buttons and cut out various heads. The kraft-colored doily and painted legs are on the background. At the top of the page I added a definition of "play" layered on some gauze from the inside of an old book's spine

This shows the dolls pulled out. I had fun dressing and accessorizing them!

The "eyes" have it - altered book page

Here's another altered book page. I'm having fun getting back into art-making after a very busy summer of travel.  This page was inspired by a similar page I saw online -- I had the perfect eye image to use.

I glued down the image and then spread texture paste around it and over the entire page with a palette knife.  After that dried, I added several blue and neutral-toned paper scraps and then stamped a few different pattern stamps with waterproof black ink to add texture. I stamped the zigzag "stitches" on the borders of a very old book page and added those to the piece.  Lastly, I sprinkled blue spray ink randomly and spritzed with water to get it to run and drip. I also splattered it in a few places.

I love how this turned out! Wish I could remember who did the similar piece in order to give credit...

As you read this, I will be on my way to Waco, TX, to spend a long weekend with three others at our friend's house making artsy-craftsy messes and having some quality girlfriend time! Hope to work on some unfinished projects while I'm gone and have more to share next week.

Frida Altered Book Spread

I returned from Vermont several days ago and had some much-needed art time on my table, creating this double-page spread.

The background is randomly collaged bits of paper scraps covered with Dylusions spray inks. Since they are highly pigmented and water-soluble, even when dry, I sprayed both pages with a clear coat before proceeding. (Unfortunately all I had on hand was gloss, so after finishing the page, I went over all with matte mod lodge to mattify it.)

I used a printout of a Frida painting, flowers and lizard from a magazine, word strips from a book page, flourish stamps and dots with a white paint marker.

It felt so good to get messy!

Paper Whimsy girls and metal tape

I finished this page the night before I left town (when I was supposed to be packing!) and have scheduled it to post while I am gone.

I love these girls from Paper Whimsy and covered them on the page with square Tim Holtz clear fragments (remember those?). I edged the fragment tiles with gold soldering tape.

Once those were secured, I glued on washers, rings, a chipboard flourish and pieces of drywall tape for texture. The entire page (except the photos) was covered with pieces of silver ducting tape (not duct tape). This is the tape wrapped around heating pipes and can be found on a large roll in home improvement stores. Then I burnished the tape well to reveal all the interesting textures. Here you can see the page at this stage.

Then it was time to paint over the tape with black gesso. I let it dry almost completely and then wiped with a dry paper towel.  I love this technique and have used it before in another altered book and also on a cover.

The strip at the top of the page is a piece of black metal dry embossed with a Ten Seconds Studio border mold.  I've had that laying around for awhile! I liked the added texture it gave to this page.

17th Century Beauty - altered page

I scheduled this to post while I am out of town. I finished this page a few days before I left for Vermont.

The background is texture paste through a circle stencil which was then colored with several colors of chalk pastels (turquoise, coral red and yellow ochre). I added each color separately and covered with clear gesso to seal. After the three colors were added I then sanded and wiped lightly with a black Staz On ink pad.

The image is from an Italian painting in one of my art books. I added the rays by drawing through a ray stencil on scrapbook paper and then cutting them out. I placed them behind her head to bring her to the foreground as she got lost on the background. I also added the bird and butterfly.

New Altered Book

It's been a busy week! Last weekend we went to Albuquerque for our grandson's 7th birthday party, returning late Sunday night. On Monday our two grandsons from Austin arrived and stayed with us until today while their mother (a SW flight attendant) worked a trip. We had so much fun with them, taking them to the Perot Natural History and Science Museum in Dallas, swimming, and playing lots of games. Tomorrow we leave for Kansas City to visit my sister and brother-in-law for the weekend so not much time to rest!

I managed to get started on a new altered book. I completed the first spread (three pages actually) before the boys arrived. I've saved these beautiful iconic photos from a National Geographic for years and wanted to use them somehow.  The first is of a gorgeous Afghan refugee taken by a photographer in 1985. She had never had a her photo taken before. Seventeen years later, the photographer searched for her and, miraculously, found her. Although she has aged and her face shows signs of her struggles and hard life, she is still beautiful. (The modern images I used on the other pages hardly compare but I needed to complete the spread!)

Pages 1 and 2

Back of Page 2 and Page 3

This summer has been so hectic, I am glad to finally be getting back to some creative time!

What a month!

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. It's been a CRAZY few months here!

In early April we started a major remodeling project of our home: totally gutted and remodeled master bath; new wood flooring through entire downstairs, except master bedroom which got new carpet; new carpet on the stairs and upstairs "loft;" new wood flooring in my husband's office upstairs; and new flooring, countertop and painted cabinets in upstairs bathroom.  Most of March I spent packing up breakables and items inside furniture getting ready for the remodel. I also took that opportunity to declutter and donate stuff - what a job! Everything was finally completed on May 24 and I will share a bit about that in another post.

On May 1 I attended my online group's annual five-day retreat in Grapevine, TX. There were 17 of us there to celebrate our 14th retreat! (I've gone to all except one when I got pink eye the night before!) Ladies came from California, Washington, Utah, New Mexico, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Florida and, of course, Texas.  As usual, we had a theme and this year's was "It's a Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood" which could be loosely interpreted by everyone.

We always spend at least one day with everyone creating their own book coordinating with the theme. After lots of thought, I decided to make my book documenting the different houses we've lived in since we married. I altered a book with the title "So Well Remembered," which I thought was appropriate.

This is the cover. I cut a door from the actual front of the book, preserving the title. It is added to the front with two hinges.  I cut strips out of an atlas of maps from every state we've lived in and collaged them over the cover and used inks and paints to add color. 

Where the door was cut out I added a piece of mica and added a wedding photo of my husband and I on the page behind.

The first spread is for our first house in Kansas City, Mo. For this page I added lovely peonies cut from scrapbook paper and a photo as we had gorgeous peony bushes along the porch.  I journaled on each spread about the houses and memories of any special moments spent in each.

The next spread is our second house in Kansas City. I added a kraft pocket with a kraft tag for the journaling. The "Recollections" is part of a sheet of rub-ons from, yes, Recollections which has been closed for at least ten years now. I was surprised it still stuck!

Our third house was in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, due to a job transfer. I was not in love with this one! I used a pretty napkin on the background of this spread.

Next up is our house in Albuquerque where we lived 19 years. Two of the girls were born here and the four oldest went from kindergarten through high school here.  I added a pocket in this spread to hold some photos from our real estate listing when we sold, along with an artist rendering of the house when we added a garage.

The second page of the spread has a photo of our pool with more journaling. I thought the red chile washi tape was appropriate for New Mexico!

In 1999 we moved to Keller, Texas, and built our very first house. I used one of the photos as a pocket and added a tag for the journaling. There's also a floor plan of the house in the pocket.

This spread shows our current townhouse - we downsized in 2006 when our youngest left for college.

The pocket on the right holds a floor plan.

And this is the back page and back  cover. I love that paper with the houses.  Inside the book I used several pieces of Tim Holtz's wallpaper for backgrounds.

Here are a few of the other projects that different members taught us.

A mixed media house canvas by Kris

Three little cardboard houses by Roxie - they are supposed to be mounted vertically on a
yardstick which I haven't gotten to!

A box card by Jan - it folds flat and fits in an A2 envelope

Another card by Jan

It's a Z-fold and opens up to this - so cute

This was my project - an adaptation of a "penny rug." It hangs on an old drawer pull and has a key at the bottom.

We were each gifted an original stitched house pin by our "leader," Jeri. She purchased them from phizzychick on Etsy who is from England. Each was different and equally pretty.

It was a wonderful weekend and a welcome respite from the work being done at my house!

I hope to be able to post more regularly now...

Last two spreads in my altered book

These are the last pages in my current altered book.

This spread has many layers of collaged paper, paint and stencils. The scallop at the top is a scrap of a gelli print. The images are from Stampington and a fashion magazine. I like this color scheme.

I had one page left and I didn't like all the colors I had thrown on this, mostly Dylusions spray inks. It was very bright! I used a stencil with texture paste and knew that the spray ink would bleed through the paste. Then I covered everything with black gesso and, when dry, sanded over the textured design.   so a bit of the colors would show through.

The layers are made up of an old measuring tape, a border punch scrap, a piece of the torn spine of an old book that I had gutted, a brown doily and one of Tim Holtz's paper dolls (I love these and am working through my package).  After such a disastrous, colorful beginning, it turned out to have a nice vintagey touch.

Now I need to work on the cover...

"Carry On" Altered Book Page

Here's one more page in my current altered book. The image on the left is actually Tim Holtz tissue wrap decoupaged to the painted and stenciled background.  The focal point is a mix of images from a magazine - head, arms, and water bottle for a body - and three postage stamps across her waist. Quick and easy!

"Reflection" Altered Book page

This is a simple page with a painty background and bits of drywall tape.  The focal image is an old stamp that I stamped on tissue paper and then decoupaged to the page. Black Stabilo pencil was smudged around the image, the title and the edges of the page.

A few more Altered Book pages

I've done these altered book spreads in the past month or two but am just getting around to posting.

The first page has a dress made from a few layers of brown paper bag mod-podged together and then embossed with the Cuttlebug. It was then spritzed with spray ink and then the embossed areas wiped with a black permanent ink pad to bring out the design. I had hoped to use a little Tim Holtz metal hanger but it was too tiny.

The background is several layers of paint and ink with embossing paste through a stencil. I then wiped a few colors of Distress ink over the embossed areas and smudged with my finger. The tag in the upper right corner is a clothing tag which was too cute to throw away!

This spread is a little weird. I used a woman's face from a magazine layered over butterfly wings and a background of paints, stamps and ink.  I found the house on the Internet and glued it to chipboard to stiffen it. It is attached to the page with a small hinge.

Under the house is a vintage group photo (Tim Holtz's found relatives) - the idea is she is thinking of these people.

Another, more colorful, spread using fashion magazine images. Flowers make the "hat" for the girl on the left page and an upside down flower pot with a little sitting figure is the hat on the right page.

For this spread I followed LorriMarie Jenkins' exclusive Patreon You Tube video. She also shared the images - not something I usually would have used but it doesn't hurt to go outside the box occasionally! I like trying different styles.

There are chipboard tags under the right page which fit into pockets created by flattened toilet paper rolls. It's hard to see in the photos but there is also gold foil on the background.

I don't have too many more spreads to do in this book. It is so stuffed it's starting to fall apart!

Interactive Altered Book Spread

This is a three-page spread using images from old paintings. The center page is cut into two tags that, when flipped, reveal other images which interact with the original ones. When you flip the heads or bodies, you create other altered images. This one was fun to do but I had to work to get the heads and bodies to more-or-less match up!

Left page/man with center page/woman

Right page/woman with center page/man

"Head" enter top tag flipped to left page and "body" center bottom tag flipped to right page

"Body" center bottom tag flipped to left page and "head" center top tag over right page

Some of the images didn't extend to the bottom of the pages so I had to add the lace and gold doilies. I also added a gold crown made from a portion of the doily to one of the men and stamped a gold crown on one lady.

The background was painted with acrylic paint and then stenciled over with white paint. Then I wiped on two colors of Distress ink. I used black Stabilo pencil around the images and edges of the pages.

Altered Book Pages

I'm going to Austin this weekend to babysit my three and six year old grand boys but thought I'd post this before leaving. I've been back working in my altered book and having fun creating more pages.

I did this set of three pages quite awhile ago but never posted it. The center page has an acetate window. It allows the images to be seen from each side.

left page

center page with acetate window

right page

The background was made with texture paste through a stencil then painted with black gesso once dry.  After that was dry I rubbed metallic paste waxes over the high points.  The images are some of the "free insert pages" from old Stampington magazines.

This spread has a cavity cut from several pages glued together on the left side. I glued in a photo of two children, then added a printed acetate piece over the opening and glued another page on top with a window cut out.  The right page has a "flip book" with four pages.  I used Lorri Marie Jenkins' instructions on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDpRRaENGVE

back of first page and the second page of the flip book

back of second page and third page of flip book

back of third page and last page

The background has a base of collaged book pages and colorful scraps covered with a heavy coat of white gesso. Before the gesso dried I placed a magazine page on both sides, rubbed it and pulled it away to create texture. Then I rubbed them with Distress Inks.

I have a few more spreads to share when I return.

Altered Book Spreads

Finally got back to working in my altered book. Some of the backgrounds had been done before our trip but I had to add focal points and final touches.

The background of this spread started with a collage of fabric scraps glued to the pages. Then I added a layer of white gesso, a floral napkin and some stamping before adding the image and sentiment circles. Have you ever tried Mod Podging fabric? It transforms into a totally different texture and is very fun to do - great way to use up scraps too.

There are portions of a napkin collaged to this background as well. The female image came from a fashion magazine with butterfly wings behind.

I like the quirkiness of this spread. There are layers of collaged book text and small images from magazines covered with scraped acrylic paints, gelatos and stamping. The robot image is from a tech magazine of my husband's with a spiky flower as a "halo." The female head is from a Stampington magazine paired with an octopus-like plant for a body.

I think I'm finally getting back in the groove of making art. I missed it this past month!