ABRR end papers

Here is the inside of the book at the finished stage.


Thank goodness that I did not think of taking pics of the process, because I made a complete hash of prepping the book. Having removed surplus pages at regular intervals throughout, and divided the remainder into groups for each persons' spread, I tried to stick down the tabs remaining from the removed pages and to stick the groups of pages together. Neither spray adhesive or matt medium were particularly successful, and there are plenty of lumps and bumps.


The new end papers are made from commercial wrapping paper which is a scan of hand made paste paper. Lovely blues with splodges of purple and a brown which goes with the cover paper beautifully. I simply added a C1970s commercial book plate from my stash. One thing I learned: it is natural to start at the beginning and work through to the end, but I wished I had started at the back and worked forwards - the back end papers went on much better having learned from doing the front ones, and of course first impressions count! So next time I will work from the back to the front :) 

Altered Book Round Robin

I joined MixedMediaUK to try and expand my artistic horizons. Now I'm wondering what I've got myself into! 

I have signed up for an Altered Book Round Robin.
I thought I would show the process - someone might be able to learn from my mistakes :)

Each member of the group picks a theme for their book, alters the cover, strips out unwanted pages, and makes a sign-in spread, plus a spread of there own. Then the books is sent on its way around all the other members of the group, who each interpret the given theme on a spread of the book. Eventually it comes back to its owner full of eye candy. Well, that's the theory! Being brand new at this it is a steep learning curve for me.

This is the original book. I chose it because it was traditionally constructed, with sewn signatures, and nice and sturdy but not too heavy for postage. Mine was a second hand copy.

The theme that I chose was "Dragons". I had some nice hand made paper in brown, which I used to cover the book. I was aiming for an antique kind of look and it worked quite well. I wrote the words "Here be Dragons", using a basic Gothic script, with gold ink on a torn scrap of the brown paper and mounted it on a torn piece of the paper I was going to use for end papers, just to make it pop a bit, and added metal corners that I got from Quietfire Design.  I used Acrylic Matt Medium as the adhesive and was pleased with the results, as I have never used this before.
       
More soon on the travails and trauma inside the book.
Please leave a comment, constructive criticism welcomed!