Bibliophile ~ An Altered Dictionary Page

Hello everyone! It's Bonnie Irvine here today with the N pages in my altered dictionary. I think I have about seven or eight letters left to illustrate...and then I might have to start a second one. This has been such a fun project. For my N page, I chose the word Novel which I left uncovered when I gessoed the pages. I had already printed the bookshelves to size so I knew roughly where they were going. That allowed me to stencil white Studio 490 Embossing Paste through TCW's Mini Brick stencil. Once dry, I sponged Pale Ochre and Coffee Archival inks over the raised bricks and used my waterbrush to line the cement between them with Frayed Burlap Distress ink. Memento Peanut Brittle and Vintage Photo DI were also used to change the colour of a few bricks.

I've included a side by side before and after of the bookcase printed image (a freebie from Go Make Something) to show the effect a little extra colouring with my Prismacolor pencils has. I often used images I purchase but I really like to make them my own by adding shading and highlighting or doodling to the originals. I matted them both in black and cut the right page's bookcase to leave the definition uncovered.

Before they were adhered to the pages, Vintage Photo Distress ink was applied over TCW's Mini Numbers collage template across the bottom of the page. Why numbers you ask...it's a nod to the library's Dewey Decimal system :)

Further stencilling was added through Th's Splatters stencil using black gesso and then Studio 490 Black Embossing Paste on the top left coffee rings. Love the texture from the embossing pastes. More black accents were added in the form of die cut borders, punched elements, and chipboard reading glasses. Library cards were torn and the edges inked with Coffee Archival and Black Soot Distress inks. Stencilling was done with TCW's Halftone borders and white gesso. Coffee Archival was sponged though one of the patterns on TCW's Well Rounded stencil.

The two quotes were added to emphasize the joy and benefits of reading.

The image of this fabulous woman reading, Lucy Loo Bookaholic, is a digi image from The East Wind shop on Etsy. I coloured her with my Prismacolor pencils...especially loved colouring her hair. I fussy cut her with a narrow white border to add heft to the skinny bits and then matted her in black and cut her out again. She is popped up on foam tape for added dimension.

The lettering for Bibliophile was done with TH Alpha Tiles adhered with Glossy Accents and dotted with white pen. To bring some of the library card to the left page, a leftover piece was layered with a strip of burlap and another remnant from a diecut border.

The red from the little bird in Lucy's hair needed to be repeated around the page in order to make sense so a chipboard resist heart was inked with Barn Red Distress ink and a couple of punched hearts were also scattered over the spread. The hearts indicate her love of books. The same process happened for the yellow of the Dr. Seuss quote. It needed to be repeated on the left so I cut another border to layer over the black one. It all creates continuity and flow as well as completing the visual triangle.

Finishing touches were Black Big brush pen around the page edges, doodling with a Pitt pen, a scattering of black punched stars, a clock, and a bunch more white pen dots. The thing I forgot to do before taking the pictures was to add the letter N to the top of the page using a Ransom Alpha Part letter. It's there now...lol.

And that's it for another example of an altered book which happens to be our ePlay Challenge theme this month. I hope you are playing along with us! Thanks for visiting and reading this marathon post! I do like to talk :)
Bonnie

here are links to the eP store for some of the products I used:

Liquitex Acrylic Gesso	Claudine Hellmuth Studio - Black Gesso	Wendy Vecchi - Studio 490 - Embossing Paste - White	Wendy Vecchi - Studio 490 - Embossing Paste - Black
Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Splatters	TCW - 6x6 Well Rounded Stencil	TCW 6x6 Template - Mini Numbers Collage	Tsukineko - Memento Dew Drop Peanut Brittle
Archival Ink - Coffee Ink Pad	Distress Ink Pad - Vintage Photo	Distress Ink Pad - Black Soot	Distress Ink Pad - Frayed Burlap
Distress Ink Pad - Barn Door	Inkssesentials - Glossy Accents 2 oz.