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When you make a conscious choice to be happy, no one can take it away from you because no one gave it to you: you gave it to yourself.

A quote from April Green's - Bloom For Yourself Journal

Friday 16 March 2012

Not quite an Altered book!

Good evening - unusual for me to post this late in the day, I shall be off to bed shortly but I wanted to share this little beauty with you all beforehand.

I've been really impressed with everyone's different versions of Altered books/art journals.  However I am a huge book lover and the thought of chopping up a book horrifies me! Saw a post earlier during my WOYWW rounds where a book printed in 1880 was being altered. 1880! Wow, am sorry to say I couldn't do that, but fair play to those of you who can. So the other day I went into one of the many charity shops we have here just to see what there was and I found this -

It is a photo album but the cover just grabbed me, that twig bound in string, all very arty to me so I thought right what's it like inside.......



Fantastic, that's what! It's all textured and Kraft-like. It has 10 actual pages, which are thick and board-like but with the covers I have 11 double spreads.

I've seen so many Altered books, art journals etc that have so inspired me to want to have a project similar, so this will be an ongoing project during this year. I'm hoping to use lots of different techniques, some may be simple like a scrapbook page with papers and photos while others may be stamped and inked. Am sure I will get the paints out too. So I hope this book will become a mixed journal of Zoe-ness!

It fits lovely on my shelf next to the button collection. It has that look of intrigue with the materials used on the cover and back.

 This is looking down on top of the spine.
 The back cover and here close up


What a find, if anyone has any suggestions I'd be really pleased to read them, what do you think would work well, any suggestions?

Right am off to bed, enjoy your weekend, me and my boy are off to football tomorrow, then I'll be crafting, no doubt, for the rest. Take care. Zo xx

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Zoe....this is great Hugs Elaine

Deb's Pen Pot said...

It's looking lovely and inspiring, just as it was the other day! I wonder if it'd be good to use one double spread to glance back to where your craft started from, to kind of chart your crafty evolution? Just a snapshot, but one to mark how far you've come? Or not, no worries! I've been doing LOs (!) of lots of pics for my scriptorium these last couple of days, and am FINALLY writing hard this evening for the next poem! Taking a break now though...and back to work tomorrow :0( Have a fab weekend hon and happy crafting! Love Debs xxx

Neesie said...

I'm not sure about the altered book project with only just joining WOYWW so can't really help...but I have to agree with you I'd have difficulty cutting up any book especially one from 1880!
I did read that someone had used a foreign language book, so they weren't distracted by reading pages when they were supposed to be working.
I saw albums like the one above when we were in Mauritius...all made from bark, leaves and twigs. Very crafty!

Julia Dunnit said...

Zo, am so late for WOYWW that I decided to browse all over instead of missing out on other posts! Don't forget to show the transfer results will you! Love your altered book...those pages are very absorbent, so you may have to size them with some of that emulsion! Love the shot of your bin..looks very like mine !

Cass said...

I can't bring myself to chop up a book either! I prefer my own take on the altered art. I'd say the book you've got lends itself to the distress stuff.

akilli melek said...

catching up on everyone who visited me for WOYWW 141. It's been a very very busy month!
love the book and the acetate overlay poppy card from the post further down
caroline

voodoo vixen said...

What a fabby find you got! Love the covers and the spine is stunning and I wouldn't have been able to resist it either. I know what the inside paper is like... hand made stuff that sooooks up anything liquid... maybe gesso the pages before you start trying to do any techniques on them? I think it would work beautifully as a technique book and you can always use the pages as the base to add papers to.

ike said...

Goodness - that is such a find !!! You lucky Girl :-) I too could never cut up a book from 1880 :-( I could quite easily cut up some Mills & Boon though LoL xx