Altered Book Collage

by Barbara Matthiessen, Prolific Impressions Inc. (Producer)

Give a favorite book new life as a beautiful collage. Just take the old volume, pull out or color photocopy the pages, cut them up, and arrange the pieces in a fresh design. That’s an altered book collage, and it’s a great way for paper crafters and scrapbookers to create a personalized objet d’art. Get in on the fun with this guide to putting together that very first altered book, and beyond. The entire enjoyable process receives attention, from choosing a theme to the mechanics involved to the variety of crafting techniques to use. Hundreds of sample pages will inspire you to start immediately.

Genres: Art, Crafts, Nonfiction, Reference

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[liberal sprinkles]

This is a useful book if you're starting to alter books and do collage work. It describes a lot of great basic techniques like layering, creating backgrounds, collaging, decoupage, various methods of transferring image and creating embellishments. There are plenty of examples of altered books by the author and other artists, including an "Art of the World" book made by a group of crafters who each created one or several pages using art as the theme.

Altered Book Collage is a good resource whether you're looking for suggestions on how to get started if you're new to the art, or you want to get a variety of ideas for our own projects. The author provides instructions on creating complete pages and a couple of books like a triangle-shaped book with beaded edges and a botanical theme. I was impressed with Nature's Miracle, an altered children's book with foldout sections and decorated with objects from nature. The black gesso base really makes the metallic stamping and embossing stand out and give the page added depth.

I liked the book but thought it could have been better edited. One project uses a woodburning tool to transfer images but the technique is not described in detail or illustrated anywhere in the book, including the image transfer techniques section. And is it just my book or do the instructions for using tissue paper in the travel fashion book project really end in mid-sentence? Some of the photos in the techniques instructions section also leave a lot to the imagination: the image created by using bleach is not shown; the final photo used to illustrate the inkjet printer gel medium transfer technique is of an image so blurred and fuzzy I would think the method doesn't work if I hadn't already tried it myself.

Overall, a good book for starters if you don't mind a few holes here and there.

[Marcie Lovett]

Completed books shown to illustrate techniques, mostly free-spirited "artsy" styles. Although my style is different, I picked up a few good ideas. It would have been more helpful to see the completed books grouped together instead of interspersed throughout.

[Amanda]

You can see my review - https://youtu.be/Y7L0d9hHUPw

[Yan Bin]

This book is very cool because it teaches you many techniques of how to make yoor book like no other. It teaches you how to transfer a image from one to the other. It also show you how to transform a microscope slide into something beautiful like a bookmark.

[Sonya]

I liked the list of tools and easy to follow instructions in the book. I think the image sources and finished books could have been a bit better or stronger but I did like the book and would use it again as a reference tool.

[Katie]

Tamara, you've gotten me interested in this! I want to see any altered books you've made yourself!

[Jaime]

This book is chockfull of new and innovative ideas. But not only for altered books, many can be used for scrapbooking.

[Kelly]

This book details some great techniques for creating altered books, mostly all would be great tips for scrapbookers.

[Swirl Girl]

Very inspiring...especially to two-page list of ideas for altering pages. I've already used several in my classes.

[Christine]

Very informative for beginners and advanced crafters. Very beautiful photos.

[Martha]

This book is detailed, yet very easy to follow. It's full of ideas and is bound to get creative thought in motion.