Long ago - November of 2004 to be exact - a few friends and I started on an altered book swap. We each picked a book and theme, started them off and mailed them in a round robin sort of fashion. Now, being busy ladies the speed that these books traveled was truly at a snail's pace. We didn't always have time, nor a Muse, to work in them. Fast forward to 2010 and I was ready to give it up - so we are sending all books home to their rightful owners. We can then complete them at our leisure if we wish or just keep them in the stage they are in.
These pages are from my personal book - the theme is "Flora and Fauna". I tried to incorporate many things I'd learned through classes, on-line and in reading magazines. Some worked, some not so much. I love the tearing pages to make pockets on the page above - this is a great way to add some extra real estate to a layout.
Some things I learned along the way:
1. Chose your book carefully - a well constructed book will work best, may be a bit more costly when starting out but worth it in the end.
2. Tear out (carefully) pages before starting any work. Count about 10-20 pages and then tear out like amount and work your way to the back of the book. This greatly helps in allowing plenty of room for lumpy pages and the book won't fan out and damage the spine.
3. Set a time table if you want the books to move around quickly. I think the amount of time here was way too long and I know I got bored of the project - no fault of the other participants, but in that amount of time things change. You move on to other types of art, you want to try other things etc. Now, I'm only speaking for myself here - the other participants might disagree.
4. I still really like Squirrels and Birds ;-)
I'll be showing some other pages in the days to come - some I had totally forgotten about!
1. Chose your book carefully - a well constructed book will work best, may be a bit more costly when starting out but worth it in the end.
2. Tear out (carefully) pages before starting any work. Count about 10-20 pages and then tear out like amount and work your way to the back of the book. This greatly helps in allowing plenty of room for lumpy pages and the book won't fan out and damage the spine.
3. Set a time table if you want the books to move around quickly. I think the amount of time here was way too long and I know I got bored of the project - no fault of the other participants, but in that amount of time things change. You move on to other types of art, you want to try other things etc. Now, I'm only speaking for myself here - the other participants might disagree.
4. I still really like Squirrels and Birds ;-)
I'll be showing some other pages in the days to come - some I had totally forgotten about!
Comments
And, oh, I love your book!
Rinda