This project is all about altering a book!
I have been decluttering little Josh's book shelves lately from old babybooks and had some of those cute ones in my hands with 4 pages, little cute tabs ad I have been thinking by myself: I don't want to keep them any more and I don't want to throw them away. But there's no Baby around so what else could be done with them? And I decided to make them an altered book! Well it was said easier than done, I can tell you! I have been sending curses while trying to get rid of this glossy stuff that is protecting the pages from sticky little baby hands!! But one after the other.
Supplies:
* One old boardbook of your kids
* sanding paper
* cutter, knife or scissors depending on your taste and choice of papers and elements
* paint, glue, cardstock of your choice
How to:
1. Get rid of the book's surface!
Well first of all you will have to get rid of the book's surface! When you are lucky there is no glossy foil over the pages, if you are not lucky, like me, there is and this means that you have to get rid of it,too, otherwise nothing will really stick on your book pages
I tried to peel most of the pages including the gloss off..but this didn't work as easy as I had expected it to do
There were many spots of paper and gloss left and when trying to peel them off, half of the cardboard would tear off, too.
2. If nothing works well, sand it!
So I decided to sand it. This definitely is an option. But only when having a boardbook made out of thicker cardboard. If it is too thin, half of your book will be gone once you sanded it!
Now this is where the mess starts! Sanding this stubborn book was an adventure that created tons of dust and dirty smeary fingers, seemed like it took a lifetime to do it and it ended with a more or less blank book. I have been fed up pretty soon also because I love to have all done in say 2 min when having an idea for something. I definitely could have been doing it way better than I did.
3. Paint it!
Well, as I didn't want to cover all completly with cardstock I had to paint it.
Now that not all of the glossy coating was completely gone i decided to use an underground under my paint which was Gesso!
Gesso is a dry fast acrylic medium to prepare an underground (like these boardbook pages) before painting or applying adhesives to it. It is available in white, black and some canvas like color but you can give it every color you want with adding acrylic paint to white Gesso. Gesso is also an option when your boardbook's cardboard is too thin to sand and peel all off. Just prepare it with Gesso. I love Gesso, it is cool and can be used for many more cool scrapbooking projects!
4. Dress your book!
When the Gesso has dried you can start dressing and embellishing your book.
Be creative! I printed out some photos using some of my templates and painted my pages, doodled and wrote on them and used my Little Monster Papers. The good thing is when painting your pages with a color: when they are dry and you don't like the color you can just paint another color over. I'd advise you to use acrylic colors as they dry fast and they are not that wet! Otherwise your pages will curl! Add real texture to your pages: just glue some tissue paper on your pages and paint over them, stamp on them! The possibilities are endless!
5. Add the photos
When all pages are prepared, you can add your photos and your journaling! I did layer all on the pages before glueing them, so I was able to see whether I really liked it or not.
Done!! Have fun with your little book!
Here is my final product!
Hope you liked this little tutorial that much to try your own one. If you should do so, let me know! I'd love to see your projects!
Sylvie
Labels: altered children's board book, project 3
