Altered Books: In the Beginning

Altered books have become popular as a display art form. Not only is it visually appealing but also extremely tactile which appeals to the touchy feely in all of us. These artistic tokens have been popping up in gift shops and curios with themes like, Mother, Sister, Best Friends, and Love decorated with purchased ephemera so there are lots of sophisticated Victorian women in hats, botanicals, lace and buttons everywhere. Cool looking but not very personal. Here is how to make your own personalized version.

First off I needed to get one of these old hardcover books that I wouldn't feel bad about destroying. Library sales, yard sales, relatives doing seasonal cleaning, and the local consignment/antique shop turned up a plethora of the poor abandoned things. The key is to choose the ones you take home with you wisely.

First thing is to consider the size of the book. Can you recover it with paper sizes that are available to you? Some of the larger coffee table books are too large for the 12"x12" standard scrapbook paper. This means additional cost for materials and most likely some searching for anything special. Of course you may luck out and find one with a dust jacket covering wonderful decorative papers you may not want to change. Be sure to check the corners and the ends of the spine. If any of these is crumpled or wrinkled too much it will make recovering operation more challenging. Minor wrinkles and bends can be smoothed out but anything too dog eared will most likely cause similar distortion to whatever you use to recover.