Here’s one of the books I started with. I bought a pile of these little books at the thrift store, and thought they’d make great book shrines. A few things to know about them: they have sewn spines, sturdy covers, and the page blocks (that’s the part in between the covers) are almost exactly 1/2″ tall. All these things are important for this process to go quickly.

I’m going to replace the 1/2″ page block with some 1/2″ foam core board. This is twice as thick as normal foam core, but most craft stores carry it. One sheet will do quite a few books.

The first thing to do is cut out the page block. Most sewn books have endpapers that are folded at the spine, so the lining of the covers, and that first, thick page of the book are one piece. If possible, I like to preserve this page, so I flip past it, to the first real paper page of the book, and cut into the stitching at the spine there. Very often, it just takes a few quick swipes of a craft knife to remove the page block—just be careful not to cut into the book’s binding.

Once the page block is gone, I usually remove the back flyleaf. The new niche will enclose the back inside cover, so this extra page isn’t necessary. However, the front flyleaf will come in handy later, so I leave it attached.

The page block can act as the pattern for the new foam core niche. Just trace around it, then true up the lines with a ruler.

Cut the new block from the foam core using a craft knife with new, sharp blades. One of the keys of getting a clean cut in foam core is to use sharp blades. Another is to make long cuts, rather than hacking or sawing ones. I usually do one cut to get through the upper layer of paper, another to go through the foam, and a last one to cut through the bottom paper.

Test the fit of the block, and if necessary, trim away any excess, or any uglies.

Now, the block needs a hole. Measure and mark. I almost always leave at least a 3/4″ frame on small books, and 1″ on larger ones.

Cut the marked area away, using long strokes. By the time you finish cutting this, it will be time to discard the blade. Foam core is really hard on blades. Don’t bother trying to get by on a second book with the same one—it will come out looking like my dog chewed the edges.

Another test fit, to be sure the block looks as I intended.

Now, it’s time to cover the new block. Most books have a few plain, empty pages in them at the back, and these are great for covering the foam core edges. Just cut them into 1-1/2″ strips.

Apply glue to the top and bottom edges of the foam core, and spread it thinly with your finger.

Center a strip of the book paper on the gluey ends, letting some paper extend beyond either side. Apply a bit of glue on either side, and fold the strip so it starts to go up each side.

Clip the corners, and cut away a small triangle. These don’t have to be perfectly mitred corners—just clip away a bit to reduce bulk.

Fold the excess papers down on the front and back sides, and glue them in place.

Glue a strip of paper on either long side, fold down the excess on the front and back of the foam core, and glue it down. Now, your entire outer edge is covered in paper.

Repeat with the inside edges, encasing them in paper as well.

Position the block in the book, and apply glue to the front side of the frame, spreading it thinly.

Close the book, sticking the block to the front flyleaf. Check to make sure you love the positioning, then weight the whole thing down for half an hour, and let the glue dry.

Open the book, and use a craft knife to cut away the center hole in the flyleaf paper.

Here’s the new book, ready to decorate:

I’ve left the niche loose, so I can add a background paper easily before gluing it down.

1. Find an old book. A hardcover book is best. If you find one with a sewn spine, even better. The size of the book doesn’t matter, although you may want to stick to those that have 100 pages or more. Mine was roughly paperback sized, but with a hard cover.

2. Fold every page in the book in half. Don’t bother gluing them.

That’s it. You’re finished. Tuck notes between the pages, and they’ll stay put, held in place by the pressure of the other folded pages.

Nifty, right?

(Edited March, 2004 – now over 240 themes!)
(Edited August, 2008 – now over 350 themes!)

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/thebasics/theme-ideas/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/ab/adding-shaker/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/ab/adding-shaker/#comments Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:55:24 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=27 This week, I received Angela’s altered book about circles. A lot of the work already done in the book dealt with quotations and expressions using the word circle. I sort of wanted to do something a little less literal. I had a picture of the universe swirling in a circle, with all sorts of pieces and parts spinning around. One of the things I wanted to incorporate was some sort of shallow niche that contained stars—partly because I like doing shaker box elements, and partly because this book is SO thick that it will never be finished if everyone just does two flat pages worth of work.

So, back to the point of this lesson: the shaker box. This is usually done on cards. It’s just a chunky, cut out section that’s covered with a clear window, containing some little goodies that will move around when you shake the card. To do this in an altered book, I had to glue a bunch of pages together into a page block to create the depth necessary for filling. Clear as mud?

First, I had to cut holes in quite a few pages. While most niches start by gluing the pages first, then cutting, I usually work circles the opposite way—cut first, glue later. Since these niches will be relatively shallow, I felt confident I could make everything line up properly. For a small hole, I used a hole punch, going through a few pages at a time, and watching the bottom to line up each punch with the previous ones.

For a larger hole, I used a guide. I had a round metal candy tin handy that worked for this. I just pressed the tin against the pages, and cut around it slowly with a craft knife. Every so often, I’d lift the tin, remove the holes I’d cut, and flip the finished pages out of the way, then line the tin back up, and cut more. Little by little, I cut through the 1/4″ of pages I used up for this layout.

Now, a little gluing. I tucked a piece of waxed paper underneath the bottom punched page, applied some glue to the tip of my finger, and smooshed it into all the cut areas, covering them completely with glue. I also applied glue this same way to the outside page edges to create a solid block.

I left one page with holes punched in it unglued at the top of the block. I’ll use this to create the cover for the shaker later.

I slid the waxed paper out from under the block and replaced it with plastic wrap. I also covered the top of the block with wrap. This will allow me to close the book and weight it without worrying about my niche block sticking to any uncut pages.

Weight, and let dry overnight. It’s good not to peek at books that are drying—just leave them closed and let them be.

The next day, I could start working on building the shaker, which is going to go into the really large hole I cut using the tin. First, I wanted to give it a solid backing. The easy way to do this is to simply glue a piece of chipboard to the page beneath the block. This will take all the flex out of the bottom of the page block, so the shakable stars can move over a nice, flat surface.

While the chipboard was drying, I covered the top of the shaker with the background for my whole layout. This lovely patterned paper is going over that one page with the holes punched in it. I cut the holes and trimmed around the edges to make a nice, neat cover for the shaker. This page will lay over the top of all my uglies later.

With the chipboard dry, I could lay in the bottom of the shaker box. I stamped and embossed a moon face on brown paper, and applied it behind the page block, over the chipboard using glue stick.

Using more Tacky glue, I glued the whole page block down to the backing page, paying particular attention to the area where the hole for the shaker was cut. I really want to get this area completely glued to the backing, with no gaps—otherwise, my little shakable stars will leak out later.

OK, this has to dry completely before moving on, because I don’t want the stars to stick into the glue. I set it aside overnight again.

The next day, I added a few pinches of gold sequin stars to the niche.

Over the top of the hole goes a piece of clear acetate. I used a leftover bit of transparency. I often save bits of clear packaging to use for this. Anything that’s clear and sort of sturdy will work.

Like I did at the bottom of the shaker, I’m paying particular attention that there’s a good, solid seal around the circle. I don’t want stars leaking out.

Now, to cover all the mess, I’m just going to apply a little glue stick to the cover page, and smooth it over the whole block. Like magic, it hides all the uglies.

Here’s a closer view of the shaker, in the big round opening. The stars move around as the page turns, and settle into the lower section of the niche when the viewer holds the book up to look at it.

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/ab/adding-shaker/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/ab/planning-layout/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/ab/planning-layout/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:53:09 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=26 I’ve been working with new altered book artists through the mentoring program on the Yahoo Altered Books Group for quite a few years, and one of the questions almost every one of my “mentees” asks is how I plan my layouts.

Well, the answer to this is that I really don’t. I mean, I have an idea in my head when I start, but it’s not set in stone. I sort of dive in, and let whatever is going to happen, happen.

Since I started a new round robin with my local mixed media group this week, I decided to document the first layout I did in someone else’s book. Here’s how it went:

The book I received last Saturday belonged to Amy. She’s relatively new to our group, but certainly not new to altered art. Since I’ve seen some of her work, I know that she likes vintage, girly things. Her book was titled Loss—here’s the cover. She also did a couple of layouts in it, which were vintage, and romantic in feel. Whenever I work in a book, I try to take my cue from the work already done in it—so, if the book is soft and romantic, I probably don’t want to dump hard edged, modern grunge into it without a really good reason.

Amy included a rules page in her book. Most altered books I’ve received in round robins have some sort of rules included by the book’s originator, that tell her likes and dislikes, and give some minimal guidance about the theme of the book. Amy’s rules were pretty liberal: she tells us we can talk about any sort of loss, lost items, feelings, etc. She also doesn’t care of the book gets lumpy and bumpy along the way. It’s customary to follow whatever is written in the book’s rules, so if she had written that it’s required we work all in blue, or that every layout have a bird in it, as silly as that might sound, all the artists would be asked to stick to it. Mercifully, Amy did not require those things—just have fun, and talk about loss.

Right after reading the rules, I whipped out a pencil and paper, and did a little free association. Amy’s layouts had the word lost in them, and I wanted to follow along, so I started listing phrases with that word in them. This list will stay with the book for the month I have it, so I can look at it whenever I’m working on it, and think about the possibilities.

As soon as I saw this book, I knew I wanted to do something about lost time or lost hours—a running theme in my life right now. I decided to use lost time as my jumping off point for the first layout.

In my head, I saw a little girl balancing a huge clock on her shoulders, so I started with that image. I actually used two images to create this: one of a clock, and one from a painting of a girl balancing a water jug. In keeping with the look of the artwork already in the book, I chose vintage, romantic looking items.

I measured out the size of Amy’s book, and on my computer, created a page that size, then sized my images accordingly. Here they are, cut out and laying on the book. Now where do I go?

I like big and bold, but Amy’s book is small. I decided to use the word motif she’d already started, on a much larger scale—lost time would be the background for the piece. I used some stencils, and roughed out the placement on a piece of scratch paper, figuring that the girl with the clock would take the place of the I in time, and the O in lost.

OK, I have an idea for the background going, but gee, it’s sort of dull—it needs texture. Maybe numbers, like a time schedule?

I found the answer to my background in the back of an old atlas—the number chart showing the mileage between major cities. It was the perfect size to cover the two pages of Amy’s book, but sort of modern looking. I know just how to fix this once it’s anchored into the book, so I went ahead and glued it in, then stencilled the letters. I went ahead and colored them in with the pencil—you’ll see why in a minute.

My cure-all for bright, modern pages is to tone them with a little glaze—in this case, Golden glaze in ochre. Clear glaze is a great thing to have around your workroom, since it can be mixed with any cheap acrylic to create custom glaze colors.

Here, you can see why I colored in the letters with pencil. The graphite of the pencil blends just a bit with the glaze as I brush over it, so the letters and the background blend a bit. The glaze also reacts differently on the areas colored with pencil, so I get a slightly different color. Instead of letters floating on a background, or letters disappearing into it, I get a nice, unified look.

Well, OK, the glaze dried, and the lettering did blend into the background just a little too much. I grabbed the stencils and some chalks, and warmed them up a bit with some brown tones. I want to end up with something that is readable, but doesn’t jump out more than the focal image of the girl with the clock.

Hey, she looks pretty good on this background! I went ahead and glued her down, positioning carefully to cover the proper letters, and keep the clock balanced on her shoulder.

Well, now what? It just doesn’t look finished yet. It needs some visual interest.

Maybe some aging? I did some toning around the edges with brown glaze, and then dragged some up into the layout, to give the page a little more texture. Instead of flat ochre with brown letters, it’s now more mottled, and looks a little older.

Better, but still not exactly right. It’s missing a little fun…

…and fun in this case means little clocks flying on butterfly wings. I did three, in two different sizes. Varying the size of embellishments often means you can get away with fewer of them—and I’m a big believer in the idea that less is more. I also almost always embellish in odd numbers. Odd is easier on the eye than even, for a lot of weird psychological reasons.

I positioned the butterflies so they didn’t cover too much of the background text.

Here’s the finished layout, blasted with a nice coat of my favorite sealer: Aussie Mega Hairspray. It’s cheap, it smells better than commercial sealers, and it generally sprays in a layer of tiny spots, which gives a nice effect to vintage work. I’ve been using it since I was a poor design student, and had no choice.

Just because I know I do this: notice that they’re in a nice diagonal line of white elements from top left to bottom right? That’s me, leading your eye across the page. I tend to embellish on the diagonal without realizing it.

There ya go. That’s my thought process. Not terribly neat and tidy, is it?

This is the finished book cover I created using just some paint and gesso, and a few chipboard letters. These letters are everywhere right now, but of course, none of the ones being sold commercially were exactly right. As usual, I made my own.

Here’s how the cover went together:

First, I layed out the lettering using some commercial stencils. I have these in just about every size, so I just played around until I could fit the word things under the word bad nicely. Since the whole book would be covered with paint and gesso shortly, I just traced the design out directly onto the book—and you can see here what the real book looked like starting out. Not pretty!

Once I had the design figured out, I traced the letters onto a sheet of chipboard. You can buy chipboard at most scrapbook stores, but I just save the backs of all my drawing pads, and the packing boards included in the packages of sheet protectors I use to pack collage sheets at Ten Two Studios, and recycle it into my projects.

Most commercial stencil letters have bridges—places where the line of the letter is broken to create a stronger template shape. I drew across the bridges after tracing, to create letters that were single pieces.

Next, I cut the letters out. This was done with a sharp craft knife. I cut all the straight lines of the letters first, and then the curves. My commercial stencils were very boxy, so the curves were minimal and not too painful to cut.

I lined up the cut letters on the book cover, just for a little gratification. I thought I might glue them in place now, but realized that the book’s original cover art was making it difficult to see whether they were really placed correctly. Perhaps a little basecoating would help…

I applied a light coat of gesso to the cover to give myself a clean place to work.

Once the gesso was dry, I drew a couple of guidelines, and positioned the letters on the cover.

I glued the letters in place with a little Weld Bond, and pressed them down hard. Here and there, excess glue oozed out. I removed this with a piece of tissue.

The chipboard really wanted to curl when damp with glue, so I weighted the letters with a heavy book, and let the glue dry completely. They were nice and flat when I removed the book a few hours later.

To make the letters appear as if they were part of the book cover rather than just applied, I added several coats of gesso. I used a small brush, and brushed the gesso from the cover up over the letters, allowing it to sort of puddle against the edges of the letters. Each coat was allowed to dry completely before the next was applied.

I painted the whole book black, front and back, and let it dry.

To complete the look, I sanded the whole cover with a coarse sanding block. When I do this kind of distressing, I try to concentrate the sanding where the book would normally show signs of wear: raised areas and edges.

I applied a line of black duct tape to the spine of the book, then covered the whole thing with a coat of matte medium to protect the painted surfaces.

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/ab/chipboard-letter/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/ab/sectioned-niches/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/ab/sectioned-niches/#comments Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:48:32 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=24 Here’s the general idea: in the back section of my book, I wanted to add two rows of tiny bottles, which will eventually be filled with herbs and spices, and decorated. I really wanted to add this before working on the rest of the book, since I never know when I do complicated stuff like this whether it’s going to work and look wonderful, or just end up as a big mess. I always do niches or complicated cutting first—if it’s a big mess, there’s no loss other than the book I’ve used as a base.

Here’s the book I started with—and yes, it’s huge. It’s an old atlas that’s about 16 inches tall, and 11 inches wide. I like working on big books like this, because I can do all sorts of crazy, broad things in them that little books don’t allow.

The important things about this book, other than its size: it has a sewn spine, and the pages are made of really heavy stock. If you’re not sure how to identify a sewn spine, try this article, which gives you an up close view of what to look for. A sturdy sewn spine is a must for the kind of cutting I have in mind—a glued spine will just fall right apart during the cutting process.

OK, now I want to mark off the section that will hold the bottles, and create a page block in which to cut my niches. I held one of my little bottles against the book to measure off the depth, and added some extra pages. Then I masked off the book with plastic and glued the block with Tacky glue. For a more detailed look at how to do this, try this article.

I set the book aside, weighted, to dry overnight before proceeding with any cutting.

While the book was drying, I made myself a little cardstock template to figure out how large the niches would be, and where the dividers would go. I left a little finger room around each bottle, so they can really be removed from the book.

When the book was dry, I drew in the blocks for the niches, leaving at least one inch of margin on all four sides. This allows plenty of support for the cut areas.

I cut, and cut, and cut, until my poor fingers ached. Even changing blades regularly didn’t help—there’s just a lot of cutting involved in this project. This step took me two days, because when the fingers get sore, I take a break.

After cutting the two long niches for bottles, plus a big one down below for storage, I applied glue to the cut edges, weighted the book, and let it dry overnight.

To add dividers, I used craft sticks (also known as popscicle sticks), cut to the height of the niches. I slid the template underneath each niche, to use as a guide for gluing. This way, each divider remained straight, and was evenly spaced. The down side is that I could really only glue to the top and bottom of the niche, since the back of it was covered by the template.

When the dividers were dry, I glued a piece of heavy cardstock on the back side of the page block to cover the backs of the niches. I decided to do this rather than gluing the whole thing down to the back cover because I’ll be covering the front and back covers with fabric, and want to finish the book inside first, so paint and glue won’t get all over it.

I glued the backs of the craft sticks down to the cardstock, which added stability to the niches. When the glue was dry, I applied a coat of gesso, since I’ll be working white papers over the top.

Now, a little magic: the craft sticks and the niche become one now, by adding a long piece of mulberry paper applied with gel medium. I draped this carefully, tucking it against the craft sticks and the back of the niche, and when finished, the dividers looked like they were cut into the book rather than added later. Nifty, eh?

Another coat of gesso completes the effect, filling in any holes and leaving a nicely primed surface to paint and decorate later.

I try to create a sturdy cover for any niche that holds loose objects, because what’s the point of all that work if the treasures fall out? I glued a piece of chipboard between the previous two pages to create a cover, then added flaps at on three sides made from removed pages and cardstock glued to the back of the page block.

(Not sure why I’m removing pages? Try this article on preparing a book to be altered to find out why.)

Here’s the finished result, ready for decorating:

To create a book like this, you’ll have decide what to use for drawers. My reccomendation is something that’s pre-made, like candy tins or matchboxes, rather than attempting to create drawers on your own.

You’ll also need a book that can accomodate your drawer choice. Some people choose the book first, and then select drawer pieces that fit. Others want to make drawers from specific items, and choose a book that gives the room to work with that choice. This “which came first” choice is up to you.

Matching up your book and drawer choice is pretty simple: you want a book that’s tall enough, wide enough and deep enough for your drawer, plus some extra for ease, plus whatever extra pages you’ll want to decorate. Some drawer books have no decorated pages, and some have the drawer blocks in the front or back of the book, with lots of pages decorated. Again, the choice is up to you.

Once you’ve chosen where your drawers will be placed, you’ll create a page block, just like you would to create a niche. I have a step-by-step lesson on creating niches posted here. You’ll want to mask whatever isn’t included in your drawer section with plastic, and do the edge gluing and weighting to dry parts. That will give you what’s shown here—a solid page block that’s slightly deeper than the tins that will become the drawers.

Now, you’ll want to mark drawer placement on the block, to prepare it for cutting. I positioned my Altoid tins, then did a little measuring to make sure I was leaving roughly the same margins above and below them. When cutting, I find it’s best to leave at least an inch above, below and between drawers. This allows for some innacurate cutting, and leaves a block that’s still pretty stable.

Altoid tins are larger at the top than they are at the bottom, so please don’t just trace the bottom of the tin for this step! It’s best to leave just a little ease, so the drawer will slide easily. Too much ease, and they’ll fall out every time you tilt the book. Not enough ease, and they won’t slide at all. This is something you can figure out as you go—you can always cut a bit wider if the niches are too narrow, but once you’ve cut them too big, it’s a pain to size them back down.

Because I’m prone to cutting the wrong things, this is how I mark my niches. Whatever is XXd out is what will be cut away. Whatever isn’t stays.

Now, it’s time for endless cutting. I really find cutting niches very tedious, so this part might happen over the course of several days. Unlike niches that will show, these drawer niches don’t have to be perfect—raggedy cutting of corners is fine, especially since the Altoid tin corners are rounded.

Here’s a little test fit of the first drawer. Notice that I’ve cut the niche slightly deeper than the tin.

Here’s another test fit, with both drawers in place. Try to cut both niches the same depth for a neater look.

Now, a little something to cover the top. I glued half a dozen pages together to create a lid, and glued that down over the niches. Sometimes, I use the book cover for this instead. It’s important that you use something more than just a single page, since this is going to take some wear and tear.

Where you go from here is up to you. You’ll find a lesson on prepping tins for altering here. You can paint the tins—try not to do anything too goopy, and always seal with a glaze to make sure they continue to slide. You can burn the tins and leave them bare, or color them with alcohol inks, which I describe here.

To add handles, I usually just drill two holes in one side of each tin, and add either wire or twine loops. I’ve seen drawers with buttons glued on the side—I tend to be wary of gluing anything that’s going to be yanked on, but wiring them in place through drilled holes would work for me.

What happens if you cut your niches too wide or deep, and the drawers keep falling out? Try applying a little strip of self-stick foam along the front edge of each niche, or lining the entire bottom. Alternately, you can apply it to the bottom of the tin—not as graceful a solution, but infinitely easier.

If you’re looking for cute ideas for sign in pages, you won’t find them here. Mine are plain and simple:

These three sign in pages all use simple folded cards. The first is from a Four Seasons RR, and each artist simply opened the card that matched her season, and signed her name. The second is from an Asisan Inspirations RR, and the mah johng cards flip up to reveal a space for each artist’s name. The third is from my very first round robin, and the blank cards for artist signatures are scattered amongst the missing child posters. Three different variations on the same simple theme, each coordinated to the topic of the book.

My favorite sign in is just a simple list. Here are four variations of that theme: one on a set of piano keys, one incorporated as part of the book’s introduction, one on ledger sheets, and one using no words—the crossed pens were enough of an indicator for the artists in this “no-English” round robin.

Equally simple: providing shapes that can be signed. In the first book, each artist signed on a star. In the second, each artist chose a colored square.

This book is the size of a standard novel, but once I added foldout pages, this spread was a whopping 24 inches wide—plenty of room for a space hog like me. Here’s how I add my foldout:

I usually build foldout pages from plain cardstock. Since these pages will take some wear and tear—each person who views the finished book will unfold the piece, and then refold it—it’s good to start with a solid base. I place one edge of the cardstock close to the spine of the book, but not all the way tucked into it, and then make a fold at the page edge. That gives me the width of my finished foldout page with no measuring.

I trim the folded section to create a tab for gluing. This adds the fold without adding bulk to the book’s pages at the spine. Usually, the tab is no larger than about 2 inches.

I line up the fold along the page edge, and glue it in place. I just use glue stick for this work—in fact, I use it for most of my altered book work.

Here’s one side of the foldout glued in place…

and here are both sides, ready for decorating.

I use a lot of background papers in my altered book work. One way to do this on large pieces like this one is to use wrapping paper. My finished layout needs a little color, since the images are all in sepia tones—so how about some red, white and blue stars and stripes? It looks a little loud, but some direct to paper inking will tone it right down. Here, you can see that I’ve cut my wrapping paper background piece larger than my foldouts. I apply it with glue stick, let it dry, and then trim to size.

Here’s the finished background, trimmed to size and ready to age and decorate.

The front faces of the folds are also covered with background paper, completely encasing my cardstock. These folds are now heavy enough to be handled quite a bit.

The finished layout, expanded.