Gorjuss Altered Board Book

I have been exploring the phenoma of Altered Art this week and in my travels I came across this Altered Board Book by Lydia Levy a DT member over at Tsunami Rose Designs. She uses a child's board book - the thick pages and excellent binding make it very good for altering, it is thick and sturdy and you dont need to bind it yourself - check out her YouTube tutorial and see what you think!
She has used a gorgeous set of printable papers by Tsunami Rose called Life Abloom - a beautiful set!

As you may know, I have four children and we are surrounded at times with books - many of which have been chewed by one or more of said children - but I took myself off to the bedrooms in search of something to use! I found a small book, only 10 pages, inclusive of the covers, - the kind you get in a small 'library', maybe with 6 in a box.... this one used to be a tale of Piglet and Roo! It had been altered somewhat already - ie someone took a colouring pen to it!!! But no signs of chewed corners - all still smooth and straight so I took it to my desk and pulled out the Ultimate A4 Die-Cuts pack and my 6x6 papers - all from the new DoCrafts/Santoro Gorjuss range.

I covered each page with the papers and added some stripey Gorjuss paper to the spine, with a ribbon detail. The edges of the book were painted with black acrylic as were the fold lines between each page, some paint was added to a couple of the pages for detail too.

 I embellished the front with some crushed card Candi and some die cuts, and added 'with love' to a banner.

As I started to add ribbons and images to the pages, I was inspired to make this a creation to give to my neice. Her name is Sky and she's having a hard time right now - I added her name in Gorjuss sticker letters and made it say 'The SKY's the limit!'

I added polka dot ribbon pulls for opening the pages. And added some wording on a few tags inside. 

I found a few quotes that I think she will appreciate and hand wrote these on a couple of the pages - using the lines of the papers as a guide.

This is, in my mind, a very simple example of an altered book. The board style book leaves no room for 3D work inside - otherwise the book will not close. I thought about adding a pocket and tag but may put something like this on the back with a tag that pulls out - I will update this post if i do decide to add that.

I am happy with how this has turned out and I am very much looking forward to doing another altered book project - perhaps a notebook/journal, something with more scope for 3D work, pockets, embellishments throughout. Watch this space!

Mo xxx