Great Creativity and Craft Books

The following list was created for Altered Book Workshop's given in Athens, Ohio. These books are available at the Athens Library. You can also search for them in your local library or online at Amazon.com.

Altered Books / Rubber Stamping / Scrapbooking / Collage

See www.janicephelps.com/ATCbooks.htm for links to books available new and used on Amazon.

Bookworks by Mary Maguire (686.3 Ma)
Altered Book Workshop by Bev Brazelton (702.81 Br)
Altered Book Collage by Barbara Matthiessen (702.81 Ma)
Altered Books, Collaborative Journals, and Other Adventures in Bookmaking by Holly Harrison (702.81 Ha)
Mixed Media Collage by Holly Harrison (702.81 Ha)
Kaleidoscope: ideas + projects to spark your creativity by Suzanne Simanaitis (702.8 Si)
Pockets, Pullouts & Hiding Places…interactive elements for altered books… by Jennifer Mason
Altered Art for the First Time by Madeline Arendt
Altered Art: Techniques for Creating Altered Books, Boxes, Cards & More by Terry Taylor
Collage Discovery Workshop by Claudine Hellmuth
Urgent 2nd Class: Creating curious collage, dubious documents, and other art from ephemera by Nick Bantock
The Art of Handmade Paper and Collage: transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary by Cheryl Stevenson
Collage Sourcebook: Exploring the art and techniques of collage by Jennifer L. Atkinson
Secrets of Rusty Things: Transforming found objects into art by Michael DeMeng
The Art and Craft of Handmade Books by Shereen LaPlantz
The Handmade Book by Angela James
Papermaking Techniques Book: Over 50 Techniques for Making and Embellishing Handmade Paper by John Plowman
The Essential Guide to Making Handmade Books by Gabrielle Fox
Creating Handmade Books by Alisa J. Golden
Designing with Texture: Over 150 ways to use textures for scrapbooking, card making, gifts and more by Erin Trimble
Rubber Stamping: Beyond the Basics by Michele Abel 761 Ab
The Complete Guide to Rubber Stamping: Design and decorate gifts and keepsakes simply and beautifully with rubber stamps by Grace Taormina 745.594 Ta
Artistry with Rubber Stamps: Embossing, colouring, masking, positioning and backgrounds for cards, stationary, clothes, furnishings, toys and decorations by Ellen Eadie 745.594 Ea
The Ultimate Rubber Stamping Technique Book by Gail Green 745.5 Gr
The Decorative Stamping Sourcebook: 200+ designs for making stamps to decorate your home by Juliet Bawden 681 Ba
Stamping Tricks for Scrapbooks: A Guide for enhancing your pages with stamps by Betty Auth 745.593 Au 745.593 Au
The Great Rubber Stamp Book: Designing, Making, Using by Dee Gruenig 745.594 Gr
All You Need to Know about Rubber Stamping by Maggie Wright 745.594 Wr
The Art of Rubber Stamping by Suze Weinberg 761 We
Creative Rubber Stamping Techniques by MaryJo McGraw 761 Mc
Scrapbook storytelling: Save family stories and memories with photos, journaling and your own creativity by Joanna Slan
Making Scrapbooks: Complete guide to preserving your treasured memories by Venessa-Ann 771 Va
The Art & Craft of Hand Lettering: Techniques, projects, inspiration by Annie Cicale 745.6 Ci
Stamping with Style: Sensational ways to decorate paper, fabric, polymer clay and more by Katharine Duncan-Aimone 761 Du
Creative Stamping in Polymer Clay by Barbara A. McGuire 731.42 Mc

Love-of-Nature Table Arrangement

When we moved into our home in Athens this past July, there was a small bird's nest perched atop one of the porch lights. Usually, I would leave a nest alone, but this one had been abandoned and I was concerned about the dry straw and pine needles over the warm, and somewhat outdated, porch light.

I took the nest gently down and put it in the garage, sure I would find a use for it somehow. Just looking at it--I admired the workmanship. How did the little bird get it so round? So perfectly cup shaped? How did it hold together through all sorts of weather? And, mind you, all made "with no hands." Only a beak.


—As Thanksgiving approached, I wanted to make some sort of arrangement using pine cones gathered at Drummond Island last year, tiny pine cones from Ohio University's campus, buckeyes from our back yard, and the bird's nest. I gathered these items together and, wanting to "fancy them up" grabbed a can of gold spray paint.


—Also my respirator. It's the first time I've used aerosals in a while and didn't want to stir up asthma symptoms. So, I did the sensible thing. Used the inhaler and strapped on the respirator. Looking like a giant fly and avoiding the room where our parrot resides, I went out into the garage and sprayed the heck out of these beautiful, natural elements. Hmmmm....


—Then, I found an old wooden salad bowl that had seen better days. It was humiliated by Mark's more beautiful and sturdy wooden bowls--a whole array of them, to be honest--and had been hiding in the back of a cupboard pretty much since we'd joined households. I promised it a new level of respect, and grabbed it and my glue gun, as well as the painted pinecones, bird's nest, and buckeyes.


—I put MI-5 DVDs in the player, poured a glass of Coke and settled in for a nice relaxing afternoon. On the table in front of me were a bevy of industrious projects, including nine ATCs for the "Two-Sided Hanging Ornament" swap and six or seven, I can't remember, ATCs for the "Blue Christmas" swap.

I'd used the "squirt blue, silver, and turquoise paint onto a slick surface and let it dry" method for the Blue Christmas cards, and so there was wet paint drying on surfaces all around. Silver beads used in the ornament cards were rolling across the table, as well as leftover glitter, a half-empty bag of gingersnaps (yum!), several pairs of sissors that said "sewing only" but nobody listened, and my favorite pens (Micron .005).


—I squirted glue generously into the bottom of the wooden bowl and arranged the larger, longer pine cones around it, their bottoms toward the center and their tops toward the rim. Next, I put the bird's nest in the middle and put enough glue in there to hold it.


—Then I took the medium size pine cones (more roundy shaped and about 2.5 to 3 inches long) and glued those around the bird's nest. I filled in all empty spaces with the tiny pinecones.


—I also used some leaves and eucalyptus (also sprayed gold) to fill in spaces, as well as some cool feathers purchased at Jo Ann Fabrics and Crafts a long time ago and left over from another project.

Three perfect buckeyes were glued into the middle of the next. Something else was needed (isn't it always?) and so I glued three white plastic beads in there as well.


—The arrangement looked really nice on the cherry table next to our dining room table. I love it and will enjoy it for many years, and the old wooden bowl seems happy to have a new life. I don't know how the wild bird feels about it. Hopefully the two-acres of woods behind our house will provide a new place for her to nest in the spring.

Holiday Table Seating Cards

This Thanksgiving, totally in the ATC mode, I decided to make name cards for each guest at our table...one night, trying to fall asleep, I thought of the many buckeyes we'd collected just a month or so ago. I thought of spray paint, and holiday greetings...

I ended up spray painting the buckeyes gold. I'd actually spray-painted them a week or so earlier, in anticipation of another project (see bird's nest arrangment, coming soon). So I had plenty on hand. I'd also painted some small pine cones, the kind that are two inches or less in length.

A quick Google image search pulled up various clip art sites with holiday borders. Using Photoshop, I forced the dimensions to fit ATC card size.

I then went to a site that listed hymns for every occassion and picked out a few verses that seemed appropriate to each guest. I printed the cards out on one large sheet, and cut them into 2.5 x 3.5 inch rectangles.

Then, I picked out buckeyes that had one flat side; they stand up better that way. I put a dab of glue on the top of the buckeye and placed the pinecone on top.

I had also had some green leaves that were leftover from a flower arrangment. They seemed to never wither or die. I had sprayed them gold as well. I cut one leaf off for each name card and after the pine cone was secure, glued the leaf to the buckeye as well. The leaf was used to give interest to the back side of the seating cards, what people would see from the other side of the table. So, I put the right side of the leaf facing the pine cone.

Next, I glued the printed cards to the front of the buckeye, about 1/8 inch from the table's surface. I also put a dab of glue in the middle of the leaf and adhered the card to the leaf as well.

Below is a photo of the back of the cards. They looked really pretty on the table. The next time, I will also print something on the back, and likely use my own drawings. Also, I will use shorter verses and a larger font, as our table consisted of 2 80-somethings, 1 60-something and 2 50-somethings. We were all looking for our reading glasses to see the darn things. But they did look good on the table!