Altered Book Page

A page for Iris the theme for her book is Wales. Ive only been to Wales once many years ago we went with the children when they were small. We stayed near Caenarfon camping so that immediately came to mind and of course the castle. Ive mixed up some history of Wales along with the Prince of Wales. I did some research on the net to come up with the names and dates I do hope I have spelt them right. I was going to do something about battles with the English but there were quite a lot of them and I got confused with all the Welsh names and places. I decided to simplify the story in case I got in wrong thats why its turned into the Prince of Wales. I hope you don't mind Iris that I have brought the English in.

Postcard in Stitch

I have just found out someone had to tell me my postcard for the swap in Stitch
has been published in the magazine I had to buy it didn't I. I had forgotten all about it and
wasn't quite sure when I was told what it was. I'm going to shout about it as its probable the
first and last time I will have anything printed. I had picked up the magazine a week ago but
put it back as it didn't contain anything I particularly wanted to make. Click on the title and it will take you to my blog page with the card. I did a swap with Amelia she has the second
postcard I made.

Altered Book

I have been quiet on my blog lately I have joined an altered book swap with mixedmediauk- see links. I have never made one before I always thought it was a mystical operation I wouldn't be able to do. Becky on the group explained all to the new ones and yes I have done it. There are eight of us in the swap and we post the book off to a new person every month so it wont be back to me

until next year. We all chose our own themes mine is The Lady and the Garden I like anything to do with flowers and gardens. Some of the themes are a bit more difficult than mine I will tell you about them as they come to me. I hope you will be able to follow my instruction for making the book and please leave me a comment I would love to know what you think.

Cutting a lot of the pages out with a sharp knife to reduce the thickness of the book to allow for any embellishments used and also to reduce the weight when posted. I cut the pages out about half to one inch away from the inside of the page. The cut out pages I kept and used the text for my spreads if you click on the photos you will be able to read them

The title page this was printed out on one of the pages I cut from the book the other page is the sign in page

pages sorted for each swap and clipped together. I will only glue my spreads together leaving others to glue and cut as they want

The pages are now glued together and painted with gesso. I used Elmers pva which worked well. I did try using acrylic medium but couldn't tell the difference so as pva is much cheaper have used that although I used the acrylic to stick the collage with. I have found that if you get glue on the page it cant be painted over something that I hadn't thought of before. This was the first page I did and with practice it came out smoother. I used an old credit card and a roller to get the wrinkles out.

My first spread is a collage of photos taken in my garden. Behind the door you will find me in the garden with Bertha the lady scarecrow I made and I greet you on a lovely summers day with a glass of wine. Looking through the photos of myself and husband in the garden we always seem to have a glass in our hands. Just as well it isnt always sunny and warm here in the UK

The second spread is a Victorian Garden. I have hand embroidered the lady and some of the flowers onto a cotton that doesn't fray very much before I cut the embroidery out I lightly glued around the figures and let it dry. I have also dyed some lace.

This is the last spread I did. Its painted stamped collaged with paper napkin poppys and worked into with paintstik and other crayons. The lady was put into photo editing and turned into an oil painting this sounds as though Im good at photos but Im not I just played around with this its just a matter of clicking and using a slider. I havent yet worked out how to do layering its probably quite simple if someone shows you how to do it

I use a free programme called paint.net just enter this into search and its a free download. I have

now posted my book onto the next person.