Recently, on our way back from lunch break during a day-long class, my altered book friends amused me by picking up all sorts of bits of rusted metal and other “junk” while we walked. I was amused mostly because I’ve been picking up cool-looking “stuff” all my life and I’m glad I’m not the only one who does that. I knew my friends were going to use these bits in their art, just as I use all of that “stuff” in my own art.
There are so many amazing items around us every day that are free, and that you’d probably just throw away anyway, so why not incorporate them into your altered books? I must admit sometimes it takes a lot of out-of-the-box thinking in order to do this, but hopefully this article can get you started.
The first layout utilizes the compact disc. We get these in the mail, in magazines and we have dud CDs from our own CD burning experiences. There are many different ways these CDs can be turned into artwork, but here we’ll use it as a spinny wheel.
Now, if you look closely at this photo, you’ll see an unusual textured fabric on the page backgrounds. They are dryer sheets! I took a used dryer sheet and, with gloved hands of course, smooshed Lumiere paints into the sheets until they were totally covered. It’s fun to do a whole batch of these at once in different colors for future use.
I live in a college town and in an area where there are lots of local breweries. This means that every time we go to a sports bar, restaurant, or pub, there are these great coasters, just begging to be altered. I collect them to make little books, and to use as a small canvas for collage. In this project, they are little pages in my page spread.
As you may have guessed by now, most of my inspiration in these projects came from different pop songs. One of my favorite summer songs, “Six Pack Summer” by Phil Vassar, seemed perfectly tied in with the bottle caps I hoard. Bottle caps are great for tiny little frames and a 1” hole punch is perfect for cutting the images to go inside. There are also a lot of companies that produce stickers and other items that will fit perfectly into the caps.
This last spread includes burnt wooden matches, an old clothing patch and a tiny flag snipped off of the top of a decorative food pick. I will admit this spread is one of those times when stuff doesn’t turn out the way I wanted, but when it was finished, it evoked, for me, the confusion and dark qualities of war, mixed in with the loyalty and patriotism of those who went before us and made this country great.
Take a look around your house right now and think of the items that would otherwise go to waste if you don’t add them to your altered books:
- The corrugated inside from light bulb boxes
- Plastic netting from vegetable bags
- The paper towels where you blot the ink from your stamps to clean them
- The soft plastic bags that a new comforter comes in
- Tissue paper from a package that was shipped to you
- Brown grocery bags that were torn on your way in from the car
- Empty matchboxes
- The metal ends from juice concentrate containers
- Dryer lint
- Can, jar and bottle labels and lids
- Scraps of old window screen
- Pieces of wire
- Fabric scraps from old shirts, jeans, socks
