ponderment

I've been pouring a lot of time and effort into my altered book lately, and I think I need to take a step back. One of the strengths - and weaknesses - is that there's never an end product. Or progress to show. Or anything. So all this time disappears into the book and there's nothing - except a partially defaced book - to show for it.

I love the process, but I think I need some product, too.

extreme altered books

I so totally want to do this.

other books (not mine)

so it finally occurred to me that craftster would probably have things about altered books - which of course they do - and one of the first (and prettiest) completed projects I found was this

in an unrelated note, the Scrap Exchange's annual fabric sale is next Saturday! must . . . not . . go . .

more altered book goodness

these are pictures from the book I altered in my class in September - some of the pages have changed significantly since these photos were taken!

the outside

the popup

the honeycomb

the butterflies

the pockets

in progress

Playing around with the technique demoed at the last altered books club meeting.

vascillation

Can't decide: if you're not good at something, should you still 'waste' time with it? especially if there are other things that need doing? is art for its own sake worthwhile? is it still art if it sucks? if it's pretty? if it's derivative?

I don't know.

doodles

I'm a little obsessed with fish lately. Pursuant to my new interest in altered books, I picked up a copy of "A Flyfisher's World" for free at the used bookstore.Just what I needed - more books around.

a little obsession

Thanks to an awesome Mother's Day gift I've been looking at the class lists at Ornamentea and Panopolie and saw a listing for their Altered Books Club. Altered Books are, as far as I can tell, scrapbooks without the relevancy. I was intrigued, so I've been digging up little things about it and I picked up a free book at the used bookstore today to play with. It seems like most people use them as what I would call an art journal - covering up the original book entirely - and not as many seem to derive the art from the book itself. There are no words for how cool these are.

Also, it seems to be a really cool way to make a book of words and pictures for my toddler. Though for him I think I'm going to dig up a binder and some white paper to start with.