Altered Book

One of the latest swaps on AFTCM was to alter a book with drawers with the theme "Romantic Era".

I had a bunch of empty matchboxes on hand so I used them for the drawers.

The hardest part of this project was cutting and gluing the pages for the little drawers. I made four niches and used four of the little match boxes to which I attached tassels with heart shaped brads.

I also decorated a few pages at the front of the book and left some blank for the recipient to alter. I painted the whole book with black acrylic ink.

For the book cover I took a piece of 130 LB cardstock and did the stamp smoosh technique with reds, blues and pink pigment inks. I then added various colours of Opal embossing powders and then some blue iridescent pearl embossing powder, heated well and stamped over it with my favourite Hero Arts Flourish stamp.
I added a picture of a couple from Lisa Vollrath, which I printed in black and white and coloured with artist grade chalks. I covered the picture with some acetate and then added lace around the outside and some gold rose trim on the inside edge.
The little shoe is a charm that I had in my stash and coloured with permanent markers. I thought it was a perfect addition to the cover. I added it over some netting and a decorated hat pin.

To complete the book I coloured some chipboard letters and spelled out romantic on the spine.

Dorothy Where are You? Shadow Box Altered Book

On AFTCM I am participating in a shadow box book swap. That is, we take an old hard cover book and make a niche in it, then create a scene, etc with the theme of "Dorothy where are you"?

I found a youtube video tutorial and used it to make the niche and glue the pages together, and did each step on separate nights.  I painted the book and the sides with black acrylic paint and added some copper paint in various spot.

I went to my local stamp store and was fortunate to get some Graphics 45 paper on sale with the Wizard of Oz theme. I selected several images and cut them out.

I tore some of book pages that came out of the niche and glued them to the cover then did a black color wash over them. I took a frame that I found at the dollar store and coloured it with alcohol inks. Set this aside while I printed off an image of a castle from Dover publications, in two different sizes.

I took a die cut shoe, some German Scraps trim, a label holder die cut, and some metal flower pieces and covered them with clear embossing ink, then added "stamp and stick" embossing powder then covered them with Glitter Ritz glitter.I added a coloured pearl to the centre of the flowers .

I taped a green piece of cardstock to the centre of the cover and framed it with the altered German Scraps.  I took the the two images that I had printed off and coloured them with artist chalks and set them with some fixative. I cut it down the smaller one to fit inside the frame and attached it to the book cover. I added the label holder with "where's Dorothy" underneath.

To make the shoe look a bit more like Dorothy's I added a wee bow and a clear gem and adhered it to the bottom corner. The flowers went on the top left corner. To finish the cover I added a book corner on the other corners.

I then proceeded to work on the inside of the book. On the left-hand side I used the checkered paper as a base, adding some variegated purple paper and some red glittered tape. Glued the scarecrow image, Toto the good and bad witches on. I stamped a Tim Holtz ticket and saying on the purple paper and attached it to the bottom.

I used the larger image from Dover Publications in the niche; my version of the Emerald City since I could not find any copyright free images of it. I used the same glittered red piece at the top of the page and added gems and the Journey embellishment. I put the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow in place with two layers of double-sided foam tape on the back to give them dimension. 

I took some trim and added it around the niche so the inside edges of the niche are not visible and glued some ribbon around the edges. To hide the joins in the trim, I attached four book corners.

I did not use Dorothy anywhere in the book except the back cover. In AFTCM we have the artistic license to create and interpret the theme in our own way and challenge ourselves, therefore,  I chose to have her missing rather than in a specific place in the Land of OZ.

To be honest, I really waited until I had finished the book before signing up for the swap as I was not sure I could accomplish something that I would feel good about sending to someone. Now it is completed I am happy with it and I enjoyed the journey and the challenge.

Book page challenge