Sidetracked into an Altered Book

When I returned from Italy, I wanted to write up the notes I had made during the trip so I spent some time putting together text and photos. Then my grandson Trevor told me about his high school art project in which he had made an "altered book". It sounded like a lot of fun. My daughter Kim said she wished she could make one, maybe about our trip and pretty soon I formed the idea of creating an altered book about the Italy adventure.
Our library has several books on how to do it so I read a little first and then began to design the book. First I found the base book that I would use in the Friends of the Library bookstore. It was a library discard, outdated but with useable photos and just the right size. It cost me fifty cents. The title was The Italians. I glued pages together, painted them, collaged, cut holes, decorated, transferred images in various ways, sewed in pages, and had lots of fun working on it.
Warning! This is a very time-consuming enterprise. It was taking me almost a day per page. Sometimes I had to wait hours for the glue to dry before I could advance to the next step. All in all, I think it took me about three months to make the book. The final step was to glue in the new end pages (marbled paper I had purchased in Florence) and make a new cover. The front cover I made with Spackle, a plaster-like substance. When it was dry, I painted it bright colors using acrylics. I tied a few Italian yarns into the holes I had made inside to attach the journal text.
Needless to say, I did not make paper, or work much toward my real book while I was engaged in the construction of the altered Italy book. I gave the book to Kim as a souvenir of our trip together.