Board Book Bonanza

Thanks to Drew Steinbrecher’s free online class I have a growing collection of sketch books made from children’s board books. In the past I started sketch books, but didn’t keep up with them. If you ever started a daily exercise program on January 1, found it became weekly by January 20, and maybe every three weeks by February 5, you know the process.

Drew uses his gel prints, gluing them directly on the book pages, but almost any material, paint, or drawing tool can be used as long as you gesso the pages first. Why board books? Because they’re thick cardboard the pages don’t buckle and warp with glue, and they are cheap second hand finds. Library book sales, online auctions, and yard sales are potential sources of inexpensive used ones.

I got this stack from my local library.

I won’t linger on the technical details as Drew covers them thoroughly, but so far I’ve finished two books and am almost done with a third. My leaf gel prints filled up one book by themselves.

It’s fun to make covers for my books.

Tickets and pamphlets from my trip to Spain combined with paper scraps are featured here. The grid paper lined an envelope our credit card company mailed us.

Magazine pages and collage leftovers

I start a fresh page or add to an existing one whenever I get stuck on my current quilting struggle, and find creating something in 30 minutes or less with paper and a glue stick boosts my mood. Then I’m able to return to the slog in a better frame of mind.

I’m linking to Off The Wall Fridays.