Altered Christmas Book (PART 1)

This altered Christmas Book was the very first altered book that I made. At first, I just couldn’t stand the thought of “ruining” a book, but then someone told me that I am not ruining a book, I am giving a book destined to be consumed by dust and moths a new lease on life, to be loved in a different way. I followed a tutorial from Gayle Agostinelli on YouTube to learn how to alter a book to be able to use it for something new.

What I really liked about this project is that I got to use so many of my craft supplies and tools!

This blog is in 2 PARTS

I will be sharing the tools, products and techniques I used in this book grouped under the following headings:

PART 1:

PART 2:

I will be hard to take a photo of all the products and tools used, but this is what my table looked like when I started!

For an overview, see how the project turned out:

The Book:

I visited a second-hand bookshop and found this Charles Dickens book called Christmas Stories. I must admit I didn’t buy it the first time that I saw it. When I opened it that first time I saw this inscription on the front page:

The inscription inside the book

It almost broke my heart. This was someone’s book! I went home and realised that they didn’t want it anymore, and it would be perfect for a Christmas altered book project. So, I went back and bought it for R20 (about $1).

The cover of the book was not very attractive

I took out some of the pages as described in the tutorial and painted the cover with some Vegas Gold All Purpose Ink. The name on the spine still shows through the paint as does some of the designs on the cover.

Words and embossing on the spine still visible

I added a decoration to the cover made from red corrugated card (torn and inked with Snoflake StazOn pigment ink), a printed piece of Christmas music (torn and inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink) and a paper serviette/napkin added with gel medium:

Torn and inked sheet of music — Sheet of music

Serviette added with gel medium — Serviette added

Serviettes/Napkins:

I used a simple Santa paper serviette/napkin in various ways. Only one layer of the serviette/napkin was added with some gel medium. The pages where I added serviettes/napkins were prepared by painting it with a layer of clear gesso beforehand.

I added it to a piece of music for the cover:

Christmas altered book cover

On these pages I used pieces of the serviette/napkin to create a border at the top and bottom of the pages:

Serviette/napkin border

I put some of the serviette/napkin pieces together to form a Christmas tree, tore the edges of the “tree” to make it look more like the edges of a tree, and added a star and some glitter to finish it off:

Serviette/napkin Christmas tree

Here I just added the Santa part of the serviette/napkin to the page:

Santa part of the serviette/napkin used

I used the wreaths from another serviette/napkin on these pages:

Wreaths from another serviette/napkin

I found a different serviette/napkin and added it to this page, finishing it off with some red ricrac:

Serviette/napkin edged with red ricrac

Embossing Folders:

I used various embossing folders to create the texture on these Christmas baubles.

I used white cardstock that I embossed with the embossing folders and then I punched various sizes of circles from these embossed pieces. I then swiped them with different colours of ink to show off the textures even more.

On these pages I used the same embossing folder in two different ways:

Embossing folder used

First, I used it to create an interesting textured photo mat:

Embossed photo mat

After embossing the red cardstock, I touched it lightly with some Delicata Golden Glitz ink for extra shimmer and shine.

Then I used the embossing folder as a stamp. I swiped the raised detail side with some Carnation Red Make Art ink and stamped it onto the page. I love the effect as you can still see the writing on the book page clearly through the stamped image.

Pockets:

I made use of different pockets throughout this book.

Some diagonal pockets were created by folding pages in the book and then covering it with other pieces of patterned paper or decorating it with ink and stamps:

3 images of different diagonal pockets

A different kind of pocket is created by sticking two book pages in the book together, either at the top and bottom of the pages (creating a side opening pocket) or on the bottom and side of the pages (creating a top opening pocket):

Straight pockets can also be created by sticking a piece of patterned paper over a page (glue on left right and bottom):

Straight pocket

Old Christmas gift tags also came in handy as they were already little pockets. I just had to change the inserts of some of them to disguise the writing:

Tag pockets

I created some side pockets on these pages by using patterned paper cut as scallops to fit the curve of the paper doilies:

Side pockets with doilies

The final pocket in the book was created by stitching around a piece of patterned paper with some gold thread. I stuck a copy of the original inscription from the book in this pocket:

Printables:

I used various printables in this book. I printed some journaling cards to go into the pockets:

Printed journaling cards

I printed various Santa images to use throughout the book:

4 Different printed Santa images

One of my favourite things to use in a Christmas project is Christmas sheet music:

Sheets of printed sheet music decorating various pages

Die Cuts

I used quite a few die cuts that I had left from previous Kaisercraft Christmas collections.

They were used as decorations throughout the book:

A Santa and sentiment die cuts

Another Santa and sentiment die cuts

Various die cuts on this page

Die cuts decorate a pocket

Some decorative die cuts enhanced with glitter

Die cut tags used as decoration

As tabs on the cards in the pockets:

As sayings:

And even as a frame:

Die cut frame for a photo — A frame to slide in a photo

Die cut frames to focus on important words — Frames to put the focus on some important words

Paper Punches:

It was really great to be able to use so many of my paper punches for this project! I don’t always get to use them as much as I want to.

Various paper punches used

I used various sizes of circle punches for the Christmas bauble page:

A 1 ⅟₄ inch circle punch was used to create the circle tabs and a 1⅟₂ inch circle punch to create the tab opening on the pockets:

A border punch created this intricate detail:

intricate border punched and inked, rhinestones added — Border punched and inked with rhinestones added

intricate border punch punched and inked — The other side of the page, just inked

Remember that paper punches don’t punch well through thin paper. Here two book pages were stuck together and that was thick enough to use the border punch. If you want to punch through thin paper, remember to add a thicker layer with the thin paper into the punch before punching. I suggest testing it before just using it in a bound journal or altered book.

On this page I used 8 different border punches and a lot of scrap pieces of cardstock and patterned paper to create this stunning effect:

I also used a border punch to create this postage stamp like mat:

The tab punch was really great for these tabs:

Punched tabs with dymo labels — Red and blue punched tabs

For this Christmas tree page, I used a Crop-a-dile hole punch to create the two different sized little baubles and a star punch for the big stars on the trees: