My favourite thing about #mixedmedia is I never know, when I start out, what I'm going to end up with.
A couple of months ago I picked this up from a "free box" outside a book shop. I was attracted to it mainly because of the fluorescent pink colour and because the title contained the words "My Wonderful World".
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I was thinking "maybe I could alter this" and give it to R for her birthday. And that's exactly what I did.
Unfortunately I didn't expect to be making a post about it so I didn't take any pictures of the alterations I made.
Here's a few of the things I did . . .
I took out a number of the pages so there's plenty of space for R to add her own embelishments and I left plenty of white space for her to write in or decorate as she sees fit.
I created pockets on the inside of the front and back covers and then filled them with ephemera I created from things I'd cut from the pages and other bits and bobs I'd made previously.
I also covered up the author's name on the front and back covers so she can add her own there and did some decorative alterations. I covered the words "of fashion" with a flower cut from inside the book and some black lace. That left the front cover saying "My Wonderful World" - A Book for drawing, creating and dreaming - By." Perfect for the focus of the gift.
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I created a birthday card for her using collaged scraps from my hand decorated papers with the letters cut out from QSL cards. The fluorescent pink paper was taken from pages I removed from the altered book.
The envelope is made from vintage dictionary pages, edged with washy tape which was a gift from R to me.
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Finally. This is the picture that sparked off this post.
Some time ago I made some collaged paper with no idea where it was going or what I was going to do with it. Now here we are months later and the perfect use for it has been revealed - wrapping paper for R's birthday present. It even has fluorescent pink papers on it which tie in well with the birthday card and altered book.
Often, when I'm playing with mixed media, I feel like I might just be creating clutter but, if I wait patiently a piece I've made gets incorporated into something else or finds a use like this collage did or even sparks off an impromptu blog post. 😂
Gotta love how creation has a life all of it's own!