A Collection of Altered Book Pages

When I moved my blog over to this domain I left behind all of the previous posts and documentation of my art travels. Looking for a specific picture in my files today I was reminded that I have not moved over many of my altered book pages. Part of creating altered books is in seeing what others have created and getting that spark of inspiration.

I have participated in quite a few altered book round robins and the pictures that follow here are my work in other artists books. I hope they may provide a bit of inspiration for any of you who are also madly in love with altering. All of these books were altered in 2008 and 2009. Enjoy!

July 2008 Women of Courage altered book, I did two of these double page spreads. The big photo above is my mom and dad. I believe this was in Lin’s book as it has these cute quotes that I thought she would get a kick out of.

This is the second double spread and the black and white photo is my family (mom, dad, little brother and me when I was about 8 or 9). I choose to have my mom represent my woman of courage and included the story of her battle with breast cancer somewhere in each book I altered for this swap. When you untie the gold thread the tag opens up to display the story of my mom’s courage.

June 2008 WOC altered book: I ended up using the initials WOC in every page spread and for a time (I think the swap lasted around 9 months or so) WOC was a solid part of my life.

Another of the WOC books and another of 2 full double page spreads for this artist. Here I have used the same photo (from above). I was really on a paper napkin and gold paint kick at this time and everything had to have a little of both.

Through out this round robin I scoured the internet and books for quotation about courage. Here the INOCTAVA graphic serves as the container for my mom’s story:

I had also just learned about heating foam and stamping into it and creating all of these fun medallion like embellishments to include in page spreads. Even after heating and molding the foam retains a soft shape and thus makes a great 3-D embellishment for altered books.

Maybe I should do a quick video this week on how to create these fun foam bits.

May 2008 WOC altered book: And then you have the little girl in me who needs bright fun spring colors. These two double page spreads were so much fun to just play with color as much as I wanted because they fit well with the other altered pages.

I decided to try my hand at sewing. Hand sewing this little envelope from this beautiful transparent and oh so delicate fabric. I’m sure my mom can tell you what type of fabric it is.

The little envelope contains mom’s story and I unfortunately didn’t get a picture of it open. I was also engrossed in Beryl Taylor’s book and you see that with those teeny tiny squares on the left border of these pages. Oh and I tried silver out and quickly decided that gold was my metallic of choice.

Thanks for walking a bit down memory lane with me. I plan to post more photos as I find bits of time to.

- Christy