Monday, January 27, 2014

Pink Altered Book

 Are you ready for the cutest altered book project, like, ever?
This year's altered book round robin swap with my artsy friends has a colour theme. We each chose a colour for our books - and we will send them around twice this year to our group of 5 ladies. As you might have guessed - i chose PINK! My covers were done with a floral print paper with gold foil accents.  I added some wicker handles from a gift bag and painted them pink.  Then i added a bauble and some ribbon for a "closure".
 I used to have a wicker purse with flowers on it that was so cute, everytime i put it on the checkout counter in a store to pay for something - the sales associate would say, "what a cute bag!"    It got to be so common that my husband started talking to us like we were girlfriends. 
"Are you and 'what a cute bag' having wine with dinner?" 
 "Would you and 'what a cute bag' like to go for a drive?
Well i think this altered book is just about as adorable as that bag.
 For my inside front cover i created a collage with scrapbook paper, some hand painted and stamped deli paper and some french dictionary pages.  I chose the page with "rose" - which is the French word for pink.  The bird was originally yellow - so i painted it pink.
 For the title page i used dictionary paper as a background, and discovered i have lots and lots of pink postage stamps.  I sorted my stamps by country and genre once upon a time, and had a lot of queens and kings i just grouped together.  the big pink letters were from a punch out scrapbook sheet.  I sprayed them with pink mist to add more colour.
 For the next spread i used some random stuff i found in my stash.  The page on the left was from a class i taught - where i demo'd walnut ink and gold foil, and water colour pens.  I added some washi tape and glitter tape to the edges.  The image transfer on the right was on a pink cardstock card that i never finished.  I added the bow and the word pink.
 Inside the card i added my intro and instructions to the art group.  Anything goes in this book - so long as it is predonimantly pink! 
For the next spread i started with a cool marble paper for the background and then added pieces of napkins - applied with slightly diluted matte medium.  Remember to remove both back sheets from your napkins in collage - so they have an ethereal transparency.

And finally here is the sign in page at the back of the book.  I used an Italian map with pretty pink and green printing as the background.  then some tall narrow vellum envelopes. An assortment of pink paint chip samples cut from a full deck will be used by each artist to decorate and sign.
I always love the process of "birthing" a new altered book. It is fun to create something from nothing.  And like sending your first born off to college - this book must now leave my protective nest and journey around to my friends to add their own interpretation of PINK!

1 comment:

Zenetta said...

Love this post...you really captured the essence of your book! Just lovely