Artists love to turn old materials into something creatively new and different, like altered books. Altered books have been cut, torn, glued, folded, painted, or collaged, or have pockets or 3D pop-outs.
To make your own, those board books you’ve been waiting to pass on are a great place to start. You need very little else in the way of supplies; it’s more about putting your imagination to the test.
You need
-A children’s board book (the thicker the cardboard the better)
– Medium sand paper
-White craft glue or gel medium (available in art stores
– Scissors
-Personal treasures and memorabilia — tickets, photos, poems, etc.
Optional
-Assorted decorative papers and/or pictures from old magazines
– Lead pencil and/or colored pencils
– Markers
-Acrylic paints for long-lasting durability (use only student grade)
-Assorted sizes of paint brushes
-Stamps
– Ribbon
– Popsicle stick or old credit card
Thinking outside the box
-Buttons
-Beads
– Discarded jewelry
– Fabric scraps
– Yarn or string
– Charms or trinkets
1. Prep your book
Peel off the shiny outer layer or — a more sure bet — lightly sand off the slick surface. (Don’t worry about totally eliminating the image.)
2. Cover the pages
Paint all the pages with gesso (a thick white base paint available in art supply stores — make sure open pages dry before continuing) or cover them with paper. To cover two full pages, open the book all the way so the paper won’t rip later. Push glue into center creases with a Popsicle stick or old credit card.
3. Cover the outside
Cut a piece of paper about one inch larger on all sides of the outside. Cover the spine of the book with glue, position the paper, and smooth out the paper with a card or stick. Repeat for the front and then the back. Put glue along the outside edges of the cover page and wrap paper around to the inside of the board. Don’t be too worried about how this part looks since you can then inside paper to
cover this.
4. Decorate!
It may help to think of a theme (see box). Layering and collages are always fun. For example, write your favorite poem on really cool specialty paper, tear or cut the edges with textured scissors, and glue it onto a page. For a nature journal, make a page out of birch bark; a memento page from a vacation to a beach may have some of the sand glued down or put loosely in an envelope attached to that page.
Themes for altered books
-Nature journal, with pressed flowers, dried leaves, and observations about them
-Journal of cultural adventures, with tickets, notes about museums and sketches or photos of favorite art works
-Travel journal, of one or many vacations, using tickets, photos, drawings, clippings from the local paper
-Photo or art journal — or a collection of favorite poems, favorite animals, or favorite books
– Personalized gift
Elizabeth Greenbaum is founder and executive director of ArtiCulture, an artist, and the mother of Caylamina and Maiasha (two budding artists in their own right). Located in South Minneapolis, ArtiCulture is a nonprofit arts organization that offers visual arts education for everyone from 1 to 101. Articulture.org.
