Recycle a book or book pages in an interesting way!

It was my turn this week to pick a challenge...and I love working with vintage anything, especially vintage books....using their pages to make banners, beads, paper flowers, using them in my art work and transforming them into art journals.....


Here's my photos for this week.....


I took a mixed media book altering class a while back with 
Julie Fei-Fan Balzer of Balzer Designs http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/  NYC....It was a fun class loaded with all kinds of interesting mixed media techniques....love using them in altered books and in my paintings...

I asked my librarians in the district if they have any older books that they are getting rid of, or are going to be recycled .... I would love some of them to use in art projects...and before you knew it I had boxes loaded with books of all shapes and sizes....

I love looking for hard covered books with and interesting title or has a great color cover....

next you can remove some pages to make the book a little thinner because you are going to load it up with all kinds of embellishments.....you then glue several pages together to make the pages thick  and sturdy using glue sticks......

then have fun painting and gluing things in your book....

I just used white acrylic paint but you can use gesso if you like.....and I like to leave some of the type showing....

here I painted areas that I will glue pictures down and a spot to journal....sometimes you have to go back and re-glue the pages if they are coming apart.....

have fun making your favorite patterns and shapes....with what  ever paints, markers or crayons you like....

I love adding black sharpie to everything to make those colors POP!!!!

Because the pages are so thick you can cut crazy shapes into the pages.....like these heart shape pages....

here's a page waiting for me to journal or glue my favorite pictures to.....

This is the altered book I did in Julie's class a while back....I loved the mustard colored cover and the Title..

We painted, stamped, glued, cut...and had a blast....She is a wonderful teacher....with so many creative ideas....and she is so funny...so calm and easy going....

Love that each and every book will be totally different and unique.....

Love adding my flowers and glitter (can never have enough glitter!)....

It took me some time to complete my first book with all of my other projects going on...so somethings there were winter themed pages and some spring...and that's nice to have a book that takes some time to complete and you get to include something from all the  different seasons.....

So this is the end of my 1st book......thanks Julie for all your inspiration....

what a great coffee table book.....your friends will be amazed that you made it.....

off to start another book...would love to see your altered books....