Altered Book Spread: Side Pocket Technique

Altered Book Spread: Look What I Found

Side pocket technique

I love making pockets in altered books -- I can stuff all sorts of things into them -- photos, tickets, pieces of beautiful paper or ribbon , cool text headlines I've cut out from magazines -- the flotsam and jetsam of my life. Although this is hard to tell in this photo -- there are two horizontal pockets here: one directly behind the house image and one that includes the house and the green section glued to the front of it -- you can see some of the headline I stuck in it "Look What I Found"). To make pockets like these: Glue three pages together (color them or add pictures -- here I added some flower garden pictures). Then glue two more pages together, then tear or cut off 1/3 of these pages. In this spread, I cut the pages too short -- but went ahead with what I had done and added double-stick tape to the edges, top and bottom, and stuck them to the first three pages I glued together. Then you take two more pages and glue them together, then t ear these so only 1/3 of the pages remain. To make this section a deeper pocket, I glued the image of a house to the back of it. Probably none of these directions make sense -- but the most important thing is that after you tear your pages, you glue or tape the top and bottom edges of the pages to the preceding pages -- this makes the pocket!

Altered Book Page: Waiting

AB Spread: Waiting for Her Lover

Too much time is spent in waiting. Waiting for that phone call. Waiting for a feeling. Waiting for a sign. Waiting for reunion. Waiting for that prince to come. Waiting for a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year. Waiting for a lifetime. Waiting to be forgiven. Too much time waiting.

Altered Book Technique: Woven Pockets

AB Woven Pocket Spread: The Roses of Thy Lips

This very simple altered book construction, bi-fold pockets, can be enhanced by weaving colorful ribbons through holes punched in the edges the pages. Glue your pages in four sections: three pages together, then two pages together, then another two pages together, then a final three pages. The two sets of three pages each form your canvas, or base. Color these pages, or glue a beautiful paper to them (keep in mind that you will only be seeing a top portion of these pages). Then take one set of the two pages glued together and fold back a portion of the top of these pages as shown above (you can see the diagonal line formed by the crease). Do this on the other side. Now, before you fix them to the bottom pages, take a hole punch and punch along the bottom of both sets of pages, and then along the sides (up to the crease) on the other set. Decorate the bottom sections any way you want. Then take a ribbon, or raffia, or twine, and weave each top page together with its bottom mate. Now you have pockets -- fill them! My spread is decorated with scrapbook paper, Lumiere paints, and a mermaid gift tag by Kerri Judd for E.G. & Co. The quote beneath the tag reads:

Love guards the roses of thy lips
And flies about them like a bee;
If I approach he forward skips,
And if I kiss he stingeth me.
-- Thomas Lodge

Altered Book Techniques: Tip-Ins

Tip-In: Transparency & Double-Stick Tape

Tip-ins are a lovely way to add interest to your altered book spreads. Here I am showing you three examples. These spreads are color and materials charts that I created for my students to become familiar with different types of media you can use in book alteration, and how each one is affected by the surface paper. One side of the book page is gessoed, the other is plain. I draw horizontal lines and then within each space use a different type of media (acrylic, fluid acrylic, watercolor pastels, etc.). In the tip-in above, I used a transparency print out of a photo I took in London (it was a poster on a Metro wall). I applied double-stick tape to the page first running the tape right up against the gutter, and then pressed down the edge of the transparency. The transparency can be lifted up to view the media sample beneath it. Transparencies are cool to use because they allow you to see the text and the color underneath it.

Tip-In: Greeting Card & Masking Tape (Front Side)

Tip-In: Using Masking Tape (Back of Card)

In this second example, I tipped in a colorful greeting card by running Japanese masking tape along both sides of the card. The masking tape overlaps onto the page (close to the gutter as possible). On the back of the card I added a photo of my cat Angelina and me -- kind of a similar feeling and color palette the greeting card. This is a very crude way of making a tip-in -- but it works! Just make sure to stick part of the masking tape onto the book page.

Tip-In: Between Two Ripped Pages (Front)

Tip-In: Greeting Card Between Two Ripped Book Pages (Back)

The third tip-in example is done by ripping out two book pages, but leaving each one at least one inch wide. You tip-in your picture, card, photo, or tag by gluing your chosen item between the two torn pages. This was a greeting card that seemed to work with my mermaid theme.

Manipulating Photos: Blending

MizAdventures Altered Book: Rose Explosion

I have been experimenting today with a second technique from the course Manipulating Photos By Hand -- blending to integrate the cut edge of the photos. L.K. Ludwig showed us one way by running pencils around the edges; if you use Stabilo pencils, chalk pencils, or china markers you can then smear the color into interesting lines (if using other media -- oil and chalk pastels, neocolors, etc. -- use colors that mix in with your journal page background). Here I used two photos of roses in my garden. I cut them out of the original photos. I used some acrylic paint on the edges, then iridescent chalk, then oil pastels on top and smeared the heck out of them. Fun baby. This is an incomplete spread in my MizAdventures altered book.

Manipulating Photos: Vignetting

Altered Book Spread: Forms Real and Unreal

I am taking an online course with L.K. Ludwig -- Techniques for Manipulating Photos by Hand. This very cool lady has several books out on art journaling, and some very good online courses on journaling and working with photos for use in art journals. She's very thorough and inspiring. Just began the course and so far it's exactly what I was looking for...help in integrating my photos into my art journals and altered books.

This is a spread I created in an old altered book called Paranormal Dating (haha) using the vignetting technique. You create a type of tunnel vision around your photo to draw the eye in. This photo I took in Mexico in one of those beautiful Mexican graveyards. By accident I took it in black and white, and I love the perspective and the shadows. It seems to be very appropriate for my pale, dark lady. Who is she waiting for? Is she looking at her watch? She seems a bit impatient, yet very much grounded in her environment. Check L.K. and her blog out --The Poetic Eye.

Express Yourself Altered Book Workshop at Once Around

My Express Yourself! Artists: Bonnie, Ingrid, and Pat

On a rainy, blustery, Saturday afternoon, a small group of women ventured out into the stormy weather and gathered to take my Express Yourself! Altered Book and Collage Workshop at at Once Around -- a beautiful craft and art store in Mill Valley, CA. Photos of their work and participation can be seen here. What did they have in common? A Master Pilates instructor, a CFO, and a quilter? -- All had the desire to be creative and were curious about how altering a book could ignite their creativity and express them. Bonnie's Color Spread

One of the women had taken a previous class with me, and after having a minor breakdown when I asked her to rip some pages out of her first book -- her creativity has spread like wildfire.

Ingrid's Window

Ingrid's Window Spread Interior

This seems to happen, some people just need that first spark to ignite a passion that is already there. Others go more slowly, are more cautious. I was like that. Although I was altering journals in high school, it took me many years (decades!) to actually bring creativity into my life on a daily basis, and there still are many days when I look at a page or look at my jewelry making supplies and wonder where my inspiration went off to. What I know now is that it always returns. Sometimes you just got to step over yourself to get there. Sometimes you have to wait it out. But it always returns.

I digress. The workshop was fun, it was filled with laughter, it was a joyful thing to see what people came up with...when not sure if anything would happen. It always does!

Pat's Color Spread
For more photos of the workshop and their work go here.

Techniques: Library Card Pocket

"Techniques 2010"Altered Book Spread: Not in Your Address Book

This is a very simple altered book technique: create a pocket on one of your pages. It can hold a photo, a tag, a piece of material, a small greeting card, a cut out object, a folded up list of favorite things -- just use your imagination! The pocket on this page is a plain manila library card pocket -- you know the ones that used to be in the back of library books. You can purchase them online in so many styles, sizes, and paperweights. I like the manila ones because you can decorate them to your heart's content -- paint it, stamp on it, cover it with paper, add a picture like I did here. I rummaged around in my studio and found an old address book of my grandmother's -- probably from the 60's or 70's -- and it slipped right into the pocket. I recognized her handwriting and some of the names and places she wrote in there. I liked the image of the woman looking back over her shoulder. Is she referring to her grandmother's book, or somebody else's? A mystery -- how could she ever be excluded from someone's heart?

Materials and mediums used in this spread: rubber stamp ink pads, oil pastels, gold pen, rubber stamps, ribbon, glue.

Altered Book Technique: Library Pocket