Nine days of my life I'll never get back!

I've started a new altered book.  It's for my art friend Kathy.  Kathy brought me a ton of "stuff" she didn't want after she cleaned up her craft room.  I've given a lot of it away, but she told me if I didn't want the stuff she left, to pitch it in the trash.  My heart can't do that.  I'm simply not built that way.  So, after sorting and choosing, I gave some of it to my neighbor Cheryl across the street who is a stamper and scrapbooker, I gave Scott several wonderful OLD books, I gave my next door neighbor some fru frus, and I kept a few art and mixed media books I will review one of these days, then give them away.

One thing I simply could NOT get rid of was a folder filled with many, many printed pages for an altered book I had heard Kathy talk about making.  So, I started in, but realized nothing was in order.  And, unlike how I prefer to work (which is in random order in an altered book), this book had to be created in order.

I know I should begin at the beginning, but I didn't even think about taking photos for the first five days.

So here I am after nine days.  The hardest nine days of my life, in fact.   First, I sorted and sorted and sorted, but even though I have British ancestry, I had no formal knowledge of the Kings and Queens of England.  I'm still sorting, but now I've found a few web sites that can help me figure out who comes next in this altered book.

I hadn't been thinking clearly when I gave my friend Scott all the books that were sewn.  So I had to go to my stash for a sewn book, the only rule you MUST observe when making one of these altered books.

I suspect you can tell I've removed at least half the pages that had originally been in this book, but even so, I may have to remove more as I progress through the pages. There will be NO niche in this one.

See my right sidebar if you want to make an altered book along with me.  Each of the lessons is self-explanatory, but if you want to skip the theory, there are lots of lessons on process.  As for products?  My belief is you should use what you have.

I actually started this spread first, while watching the NBA All Stars (basketball) Weekend.  Since I had very little glue, I decided to use two glazes that Kathy had given me.  I hoped to use as many of the things she left me as I possibly could.  The first glaze was brand new, never opened, and was the gorgeous maroon I used for the first layer.  However, after a day and a half, it was still not dry.  Then after three days, the glaze still wasn't dry.

I finally decided to forge ahead.  It was quite warm the day I laid down the second color, a yellowy beige, along with the images, so I took my book and images outside because it was actually warmer than in my craft room.  However, it was also quite windy, and the strips of Kings and Queens I had cut flew all over the place.  Consequently, I'm not completely sure I have these in order, although I did my best.

Note the cheesy scrapbook paper I used as a backdrop when I laid down the glaze.  I plan to use it.  Nothing Kathy gave me will get wasted in this book.

I realized I needed to reinforce the front cover, so I used some of my shimmering mists and colored some Tyvek. I found some large playing cards for the decorations, too.

I further reinforced the title page, also with colored Tyvek, and added smaller playing cards.  I found more Queens than Kings in my playing card stash, but I rationalized that Queens, although less of them, seemed to outlive all the Kings.

Kathy had printed out this mnemonic, so I colored it with my handmade mists and added it to the page.

I covered the copyright page with more playing cards, and some crowns I colored using acrylic paint.

Thankfully this spread was finally dry after five days.  I won't be using glaze as glue from now on.

Speaking of glue, all I had in my arsenal was white (wet) glue.  And it was the thick glue I really didn't want to use, but had to if I wanted to proceed.

These were the very first Kings, from 871 AD to

1066.  Since this page was so distorted from the glue I used, I tried to sew two pages together.

I didn't get the pages even, because I matched and sewed the first page to the second when I should have matched the second to the first.  Although I thought I had enough letters to spell the word "Norman," when I got to the final "n," I didn't have enough.  Golly, I was making a mess of this book, even though I had barely started.

I sewed the photo of King William I to the background and that was when I remembered I had that horrible double sided heart tape I had tried to use on another project.  This time I used it to hold my decoration in place.

Thanks for joining me on this journey.  Yes, after nine days, this is all I have to show for what I'm making.  Also, whenever I need to create a challenge entry, I have to move everything out of the way.  You may also note there are no, or very few embellishments.  I need to keep everything flat as long as possible, so I will go back at some point and add the 3-D elements later.

Again, I SO appreciate your comments and visits.  Thank you SO much for that.