I have completd an online course at Eclectic Academy and this is where I posted my homework. Hopefully I will be adding other pages that I do as time permits.

Week One

I do not have very much experience with paper products, I love traditional hand scrap-booking and have just recently started to do a lot of computer generated layouts.  I started my first altered book about three months ago and love some of the pages, but others, not so good.  So that is the reason that I signed up for this class,hopefully I will improve by the end of the class and love all the pages of my altered books. This is me and my grandson Chris.

Before going into week two, I must say that I love the book I have chosen.  It is New Narratives by Blanche Colton Williams, copyright 1930 by D. Appleton and Company.  In the front of the book someone wrote "This book is not an orphan so don't try to adopt it!"  One page says to Sid, but the owner of the book added Bill, Joe, Pete, John, Henry, Robert, Mike, Dick, Jane, Susabella, Tom, Jim and any other guy or gal with enough foldin stuff to buy it.

I first used spray adhesive to adhere the pages together to make them stronger for all the other things I would be attaching.  I really loved the effect of this spray, but hated using it because of the odor and I was even outside.  The Artsy Collage Gel worked really great on the gesso side, but had problems with the plain side, probably was something that I did wrong. I used the E6000 glue for the rings of my round tags but I am really unsure if it is safe on paper or not, I just know that it is strong.   My favorite all time glue is the Zig Glue as I use it in scrapbooking.  I did not use any type of adhesive on the tags, just stuck them in the vellum pockets.

I attached pages together with brads and some kind of craft wire.  The dry adhesives that I used would probably not be acceptable for altered books, even though I must say that they sure are holding the items in the book.  I used a basting tape that is used for sewing on the paper tags, the handi tak was used on the buttons and it is fun because you get to knead it.  Now really surprising to me are the pennies staying on with the photo mounts.  I used the two sided Scotch tape for the vellum envelopes.  The pictures and copies of money are not being held by anything other than the envelopes.

Week Four

Ok, I will admit I made a mistake, I thought you could use the two sided tape to cover the words while you were making your background but my found words came off with the tape, I put them back in since I love the effect of being able to see the words through the transfer picture of my grandson and his best friend.  I will have to practice this some more.

On this one, I cut the top off some post it notes and that worked.  I cut a slit in the top page to hold the Pantin.  I then made a pocket using the title from the 18th Century Pantin and then made a fan of the history of the Pantin to put in the pocket and covered up some of my found text.

Week Five

Background made from walnut acrylic which was watered down, on the right side I made the cut on five pages (two at a time) for the frame, then I used spray adhesive to hold together.

Background was made from East Texas red dirt, I cut a niche in thrity two pages ( again 2 at a time) then I used a glue stick to adhere them to each other.  I had real dragonfly wings but had to make the body from beads which I used gel tack to hold down.  I had a real pretty dragon fly rubber stamp for the opposite page but it didn't work too well with my red dirt background.

Week Six

Trying to put it all together..  I used the fingernail polish remove to transfer The Gambling Man Music Sheet graphic, I made background from tea bag, stamp pad with rubber finger grip and I also transferred gold dust to the sheet (don't know if you can see that or not)  I used industrial strength glue to adhere the metal holder for holding the casino players card.  I used a glue stick for the playing card.  I used photo mounts for the side pocket.