Altered Book: Dream Collage

I'm reposting several oldies-but-goodies from last summer, some of the very earliest posts at Daisy Yellow. Dream Collage was originally posted in August 2008...

I love how this piece turned out. It's collaged into an altered book. Dimensions: 8 x 12" Materials: hardback, gesso, golden fluid acrylics, ephemera, neocolor II, stamping ink.

When doing an altered book, I prep 4-6 page spreads at a time. If you prep the entire book at once, it takes a long time to dry. For this book, I glued several pairs of pages together with Mod Podge to strengthen. To do this, I painted two adjacent pages completely with Mod Podge using a cheap wide brush then pressed the two pages together and flattened with the edge of a credit card and ruler to get the excess glue and bubbles out. Even before these were dry, painted a few pages with white gesso, using a different cheap wide brush. A light coat to let some text peek through, or two coats to fully cover the page. The text can be used in so many creative ways. The pages were pretty damp at this point, so I placed wax paper between the pages and put the book under a stack of heavy books for a day or so to dry and keep from warping.

For these pages, I collected random bits from magazines, paint chips, printed quotes, product packages, and photographs. Here I sponged a little random color with Golden Fluid acrylics (they dry amazingly fast) and added ephemera with Mod Podge. After edging some images with Caran D'Ache Neocolor II crayons, I rubbed them to give them more depth. Used some rubber stamps and added a bit more acrylic paintm including circles made with a wine cork. The pages turned out surprisingly lively and happy! The final touch was stamping DREAM AWAY with alphabet stamps.