Tearing Up a Book

I love books.  I love to read them over and over.  I have respect for books.  Mostly.  Recently I have been using older books for the cool paper, print, photos and drawings that they can provide for my attempts at art.  I don't think that I will go to Hell for cutting up books, but I am not completely certain.

I found some cute little kid's books at Goodwill.  I kept them for a while because for some reason it seems kind of mean to cut up a children's book (especially given that I teach Preschool).  Then I was completely overcome by a very cool project that I learned from a class that I am taking through Scarlet Lime with the wonderful Christy Tomlinson.  She always inspires me.

The project involved cutting out a shape from each and every page in the center of the book.  I looked for a small book.  I cut out a heart (as did Ms. Tomlinson) and while I was a little intimidated at first, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be because I have a very cool little cutter tool thingy from Fiskars.  You can really control the blade with this special tool.

Anyway, I cut out the shape from all of the pages, then started in on mixing it up, so to speak.  I made tabs from stickers and stuck them on.  For the most part, I glued two pages together before I adorned them with my messiness.  That way they were a tad bit more sturdy.

This book is a gift for someone who is going to have a baby.  My intention is that it will be one of those 'picture of each month of life for the first year' type books.  I will let the Mommy figure out how to get the pictures into the book.  That will be her problem (along with a multitude of other issues that she will have after said child is born).

I hope that you enjoy my take on this project.

 The heart cut out.  I did have to go in and clean each page up a bit, but I am happy with the results.  Be aware that older books have fragile pages.

The inside back cover.  I painted the heart to coincide with the hearts from the pages.  Hopefully the new parents will be able to insert a picture of their brand new baby here.

The rest of these are pretty much from the inside of the book.

I love these hanging hearts.

These are the tabs that I made from stickers.