I made my first altered book when I was 18 and haven’t stopped since! I love old books and find it very hard to believe that a lot of them make their way to landfills while we buy new blanks to create scrapbooks. I am a die-hard recycling nut and so whenever I can, I try to incorporate things I already have in my art.

I love altering books. I alter my old books and turn them into scrapbooks and memory books and boxes and decor. I use several art techniques like decoupage and watercolor washes etc to create fun page backgrounds. The words of the book peeping through the paint make a beautiful canvas to work on. The art inside the books looks so beautiful and sometimes I create dimensional pieces that I display on my bookshelves.

I always try to start with simple ideas and then build up the pages using different layers. The end result is very complex but if you consider each layer the techniques used are super simple.

If you would like to learn how to alter books and find out what altered book art is, this course is for you. By the end of this course you will be an altered book artist and will be able to use your own ideas and create beautiful books.

Sometimes we spend so much on buying expensive ready-made books when all we need is an old book, some paper scraps and paint to create a unique piece of art. This is a great way to play with different art techniques and end up with something uniquely you!

I talk about upcycled art projects because I believe that all you need is your imagination and you can make a splendid piece of art using a few basic art supplies and things you can find around you. All you need is to mix and match your art ‘supplies’ and create some fun paint layers and Voila! You’ll become altered book artists. You can use anything you have in your art box. These could be watercolors, color pencils, crayons, acrylic paints, charcoal, images, old magazines, bubble wrap, stencils, acrylics… and the list goes on and on and on.

Where to Find Old Books?

If you don’t have old books and want to try altered books ideas, you need to find some old books. You can easily find them in many places around you. You can get old books from:

• Thrift stores
• Your friends and family
• Flea Markets
• Garage book sales
• Library book sales
• Sales from online stores
• Craigslist

Just grab a book from any of these sources and start decorating it with the easy and simple DIY art and crafts ideas in my videos.

A few things to look out for are:

1. Try and go with a hardbound book.
2. The book should have a strong spine and good binding.
3. The pages should be strong – not yellowed and old and brittle.

Imagination to Art

Altered books art projects give you the freedom to try many fun and simple art techniques to create truly beautiful books pages. One thing you should make sure of is that when you buy or choose a book, check its spine. The book spine and cover need to be in good shape. You will be removing some pages from the book and want to make sure it won’t fall apart when you do so. For this a sewn binding book is handier to work with instead of one with glue binding. The reason is that the pages in the glue bound book fall out very quickly and get hard to manage.

Again, it is your choice what colorful things and ornaments you want to use to decorate your book. You can use tissue paper, paint, images cut out from old books, stamps, acrylic paint markers, acrylic paints and so much more.

In this video course I will go over some fun and easy techniques I like to use when making my own altered books. Another thing I love about this arts and craft project is that you can involve the kids and get them to play along too.

Approach to Book Altering

Your approach towards altering the books could vary. You could create a story in your book, you could turn it into a scrapbook or a smash book, you could turn it into a travel journal. This is totally up to you. You can use fabric and paints to alter your book as well! You can use ink sprays and pens to draw beautiful line art on your pages. If you are a painter, cover your books with colorful paint and add paintings to each page. The book pages peeping through the paintings will look wonderful! Altered books welcome the artists to use their experience and skills in any form they want to.

The altering of books could be an art therapy for you. You can choose a certain theme and make the whole book accordingly. You can use the book to hold motivational quotes. Or just use it as an art journal, a place to escape to everyday, a place where you can play with no expectations.

What you’ll find in this Course?

In this course, you will be able to learn some basics of altered book art. You will get hands-on experience in dealing with the materials and how you can mix and match different things to make beautiful altered books. You will see how you can use some unusual stuff from your home and use it in unique ways in your altered books.

I prefer teaching through videos as sometimes seeing is much better than just reading – especially when you’re learning DIY projects.

After this course, you will be able to alter your old books. In this workshop, you will learn how to use any old hardbound book from the thrift store and turn it into a marvelous scrapbook for yourself! You will learn how to prepare the book, different painting techniques that can be used to transform the pages and so much more!

We’ll use everything from paint to bubble wrap, fibers to images cut out from old books, and of course, we will use a LOT of glue.

This is the perfect project to do when you want to try out some fun new mixed media techniques and want to create a truly unique keepsake. This is a perfect activity for summer months and teen parties too! What are you waiting for? I’ll see you in the videos!

• First we will repare your book by treating the pages.
• After the ase is created we will move on to adding paint and embellishments to the pages. You will learn how to use unusual household supplies to paint – so roll up your sleeves and get ready to have some fun with acrylic paints!
• We’ll go over ways to incorporate fun embellishments to your pages.

• Next up we will start adding ephemera into the book. We will use everything from old book images to fibers and more!
• You’ll learn to create several different kinds of pockets to store all your treasures.
• Find images and embellishments in unexpected places like old picture books and fun painting tools you never expected!