Book-in-a-Day 33: Little Boxes

Title: Little Boxes
Structure: Altered Book
Dimensions: 5 1/2 x 9 1/2

Video of my process. 

Yep!! You heard right. This was my first time making an altered book. Of course, I LOVED it and will be using old books for more than just ripping the pages out for my art journals. 

This was a fun and overwhelming book to create. To be completely honest, I didn't think I would finish it. 

Because it was my first time altering a book, there were a lot of things I didn't consider from the onset. For example, I should have cut some pages out instead of gluing so many together. The spine is warped a great deal because of this mishap. Also, I didn't factor in the drying time of the pages before I could move on to the next page spread. But regardless to these issues, I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED making this book. 

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I was totally inspired by the black out poetry that I've been seeing on Pintrest lately. Some of my favs are: makeblackoutpoetry.com and Creative Destruction (Kevin Harrell) and Austin Kleon who uses the newspaper to create black out poetry. So in the shadow of these poet-artists, I created my own blackout poetry book using a hard cover book of short stories. 

In total, the book has 42 altered pages -- 21 spreads. I love the yummy colors throughout the book. I took this opportunity to use my craft paints, watercolor tin, watercolor crayons, and lots and lots of gesso. Basically, I played a lot with color combinations and mixing media. 

I would totally do this again, but would give myself more than one day to do it, or pick a smaller book. :-)

The other really amazing thing about this book is the cover. The same day I started the book -- Saturday August 17th, I got my August StencilGirl stencils in the mail. If you don't know about this monthly subscription, you should check it out immediately!!! They send you three - four stencils each month and this month's were AHHH-MAZE-ZING!!!!

That's what I used for the cover and I'm in love with that stencil. It immediately jumped to the top of my list of favorites when I opened the package. So, needless to say, that's why the cover of this book is so fantastic and it fit the theme so nicely. I had already decided to call the book "Little Boxes" when I got the mail, so it was serendipity for sure. 
I'm looking forward to what next week brings. Stay tuned! 

If you're watching the videos, I'm honored! If you're making the books, I'm intrigued, so please share here or on the Giving Hands Creative Community site.