Project Planner: Altered Covers
Altering book covers for your handmade books and journals.
Mar 23, 2007
You've created a beautifully hand-bound book or journal, with pages and inserts that art nothing short of a treasure. Now, let's take that ever popular cliche, "don't judge a book by its cover," and turn it around. Let's create a cover that's just as amazing as the book you've assembled.
Note: these tips are suitable for altered books and greeting card fronts, as well.
How many times have you created a book and thought, "this book needs a little something more," but you didn't know which direction to go? Here are some tips to consider when decorating and (or) altering the covers you're working on:
- Collage: if you have extra scraps from creating the interior of your book, consider tearing them up and creating a background for a collage with them. If you don't feel comfortable collaging in this manner directly on to your cover, cut a piece of cardstock and manipulate your papers on there. Consider leaving a 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch border all around our collage. Cut out a small piece of cardstock that matches the main part of your cover and place it centered on the top of your collage as a book plate.
- Scrapbook: create a "scrapbook style" cover using die-cuts, themed paper, framed and embellishments. How you do this all depends on the theme of the book you've created. If you're creating a book that's intended to be a journal for a teacher or a new mother, theme the cover around that. There's a slew of embellishments and stickers available onine and in craft stores that will pretty much assemble this cover for you once you start shopping around.
- Keep it simple: work in layers using pieces of cardstock off to the side, then affix this to the cover. Cut your first piece of card stock so there's a 1/2 border around the entire piece, then center and attach another piece of cardstock over that with a 1/4 border all the way around. Trace the edge of the smaller piece of cardstock with a silver or gold glittler gel pen (whichever matches the best). Cut out a third piece of cardstock as a book plate background and attach a metal plate with eyelets (in the craft section of most stores). Attach this smaller "plate" to the top of the cardstock layers you've already created. Attach these layers to the cover of your book.
- Mix it up: cut a piece of watercolor paper so there's a 1/2 border all the way around the edge of your book. Off to the side, create a watercolor painting using watercolor pencils or your favorite watercolor medium. I choose pencils because the paper doesn't wave and curl as much when water is added to blend and manipulate the colors. Once the painting is dry, affix it to the cover of your book. To add some extra demension, consider adding eyelets or brads to the corners of the painting before affixing it to the cover.
These are just a few of the many things you can do with a handmade book or handmade journal cover. Have fun with this and don't let anything limit you! Another thing to consider is visiting art & craft blogs or other crafty web sites to get inspiration and ideas.
