Altered book

What a great idea! thanks to ..... fire flies and jelly beans

I got the styrophone circle from Michael's about $12.99 but I had my 40% off coupon! don't leave home with out 'em. The kids helped out a bit since I didn't have red paper, they colored an aqua colored construction paper red with tempera paint. I followed the steps in her blog and in no time at all came out with this beauty....love it, love it, love it.

I first selected a book I found in the garage and tore out the inside pages to make the above wreath. I used large head pins to hold my paper while it dried.

I just love my new hand made Valentine's day decoration.

I then used the outside cover of the book to make the following:

Sorry, because I'm a dodo, I forgot to take a picuture of the first three steps so bear with me.

After all inside pages were removed, I cut pretty scrabook card stock to cover the inside book covers front and back. I glued the cardstock and varnished with bone folder. I also cut a thiner piece of cardstock to cover the inside center of the book where the signatures (pages) were glued.

I measured the sides and made a small mark about one inch apart, this is where the ribbon will go through. I then punched the holes using the crop a dile (this baby will go through anything). After punching one side, I poked a pen thru so that the holes would line up--very important.

The next step is to poke the ribbon through, I used wired ribbon, and criss cross like you would a shoe lace.

I then decorated the front with more card stock, I used a heavy duty double sided tape.

I also rubber stamped a bird on white cardstock and cut around it and glued it to the cardstock. I added glitter to the bird to make it stand out more. Where there are birds, there are flowers so I added a die cut flower. This is the inside, you can kind of see how I covered the insde with cardstock, the same one I used to decorate the front.

The last step is to add some handles, use a crop a dile to punch the holes and pull ribbon through. You can also add beads to the ribbon, that would be really cute.

This is the back side

I'm going to give this one to my mother and fill it with small greeting cards and envelopes. I think I'll make a couple more extra. You can also keep a mini album to place inside, heck why not make a mini album to match! now that would be cool my friends.

Here are more pictures, you can easily fit 6 greeting cards with envelopes inside a thin book and even more if the book is a bit wider.