The Altered Book .... For The Time Being ....

Well, almost a week has gone by from when I first decided to take part in the Bluebird 1-2-3 Altered Book Challenge, set up by Jean.

My Altered Book has now gone down from the original 495 pages to 27 pages and is now down to a staggering 8 - with 3 pages and the cover to be completed at another time. The Book is no longer about Grand Opera. In fact, it is about nothing at all really - the titles of the arias/songs have given the lead for each 'page'.......

This is the first page 'Let's Have a Party', which needs more. I want to convey an open house impromptu party that just sort of happens when friends and family get together. The road needs more definition and an image is needed for the right hand page. Funnily enough, as I'm typing, it has just clicked in my head what is needed .... shame I can't do anything about it at the moment ....

The next page is based on the song title 'The Day I Met You' with the intention being to create an album layout showing pictures of a couple who have been happily together for a long time .....
This next page is created around 'The Flower Song' .....
And this one around 'Bird Song' (not a particularly good photo) ....

This next page is 'Jokes Like That One' ....
This one is 'There Is No Other' and shows the people who mean the most to me ....

So there you are. The Project will not be abandoned but will be looked at again, perhaps in the cool of the autumn. I enjoyed doing this but with the other things in my life I found it quite difficult, time-wise, to get this far, despite Jean's missive that the project did not have to be completed to a deadline - it was an on-going journey. I also found it difficult (as I knew I would) to get the ideas out and into My Book - but I am pleased with what I have achieved with this ....

The Altered Book .... Progress - 1

The last couple of days at work have been quite adrenalin filled and busy - hence yesterday's posting over lunch. (Just to tease you the last three days have involved two very early morning starts, one very late night finish, a telephone ringing non-stop, a wide and diverse range of people, numerous short hop journeys in the car, two extremely gorgeous men, a man with the most amazing voice at the other end of a telephone (wonder what he looks like), a lot of hanging about - the sort where you know that something is going to happen but you're not quite sure what - and the feeling of deflation when it didn't happen after all ....).

Back to normal now but when I came home from work yesterday, I thought I would have just a little snooze and you can guess what happened .... I fell asleep and woke up at 4.45am this morning. The body clock is really suffering at the moment !!!!
So - apologies to Sue who has been texting - will catch up with you later !!!!
Anyway I digress ....

One of my favourite times of day in the working week in the summer (apart from the time I leave the establishment where I work - lol) is having coffee and maybe breakfast, in the garden. It wasn't warm enough to go outside and finish preparing The Book at 4.45am so I did it in the kitchen instead and then took everything outside and took a couple of 'staged' photos ....

My Book is now down from 495 pages to 27 - which for me is no mean feat !!!! The 'original' content of The Book, as I told you, is Grand Opera. There are ten or so Operas (two of which I have never even heard of) in The Book and each had a blue and white pictorial description (kept), up to six pages of descriptive text (gone) and pages and pages of the music and words of the various tunes (how common is that !!) some of which have been kept and some have gone (but I have kept those pages for more ripping, tearing, gluing and other forms of cannabilisation - lol) .
So .... here is The Book .....

I've decided that I will work on The Book in the kitchen, so I have washed up and cleared all surfaces and got out what I think (at the moment) I might need .... paints, brushes, sponges, forks, aertex sponges (thanks to Eamon for this suggestion), a comb, lolly sticks and a sugar stirrer twizzly thing .... and put it all in a neat pile.
This is where I usually bottle out .... the ideas are all buzzing around in the head but getting them out is where I come unstuck. We'll see ......

Being Entirely Different - An Altered Book ....

Coming to Blogland just a few weeks ago, I had absolutely no idea whatsoever how many very clever and talented people there are out there .... Making things for my own Blog and visiting other peoples' has become nothing short of an addiction - but I am having great fun.
While Blog hopping on Sunday night I came across Jean's Blog at Bluebird 1-2-3, where Jean hosts a monthly Challenge. This month the Challenge is "to alter a book and make it an art journal - no other rules. You can use any ideas you want to as long as you end up with a book that reflects you and your journey".
I do not consider myself an artist in any way, not just because I can't even draw a squiggly line but because I don't consider myself to be 'originally creative' but nothing ventured - so here goes ......

I bought a Book about the Grand Opera (with 495 pages - I don't do anything by halves - lol) in a charity shop ages ago, thinking I would make an Altered Book about music. I got as far as applying gesso to the cover and then it got put to one side (probably because, if the truth were known, I wasn't sure what to do next) ....
Since finding Jean's site the Book has been retrieved. I spent a happy hour and a half on Monday when I got home from work, sitting in the garden, with a pot of paper clips and a mug of coffee bundling up the pages into 'clumps'. Then I had great fun, ripping, tearing, cutting, glueing and otherwise generally cannabalising the inside pages of the Book.

I have almost finished this stage of the Book and I can already see a number of things that aren't quite right, but that's all part of the learning process and I am sure that these 'not so good elements' can be used to the Book's advantage.
I will post some more as the project progresses. Wish me luck with this won't you - the Challenge ends on July 31st - and you can guess what I will be doing at the weekend - lol ....