An Altered Book for Paper Storage

Knowing how far to go....

That's a lesson I am still learning. How much is too much, and how little is too little? I tend to have a minimalist approach to certain kinds of design. I'm not sure how that all started. I just know that I like to have places in my work where my eye can rest for a little and relax. Anything too ultra "busy" really bugs me.

That being said, I do not think that I had gone far enough on this fun little storage project before I got out a camera for its pose.

But what is it? Well, it now houses my smallish collection of 12" by 12" sheets of colorful, patterned papers. What it was before was a slightly wonky older book that I never had any use for. It was a hard cover book. I like to alter books, but I'd never tried anything like this before.

Ingredients List:
Vintage hard cover book with fairly thick spine; torn and distressed old maps and technical engraving illustrations from the same book; Plush Possum Studio antique ephemera; a variety of distress inks, including Tim Holz and other brands; my favorite Mod Podge; Liquitex Matte Medium; FW Sepia liquid acrylic ink; embossing powder in clear, silver, black and gold colors; home made and pre-packaged stamps; die cut letters and shapes; 1/4" thick foam core board (a remnant, destined for the trash); metallic paint by Jacquard (copper and bronze, now mainly obliterated by added elements); Perfect Pearl Powder in metallics; regular PVA white glue; salvaged, wrinkly brown shipping paper; decorative edged scissors; Ranger mini mister spray bottles; Exact-o Knife; box cutter knife; various old brushes; sand paper; embossing gun; waxed paper.

I cut out the text block and kept it whole, but I chose some pages with fun images to tear, wrinkle and tint first. I cut the foam core remnant as a base, leaving about an inch jutting out of the fore edge end. That temporary extra bit added some stability while the glue dried. It got trimmed away prior to the addition of the Mod Podge parts. 
The remainder of the foam core remnant (of about the same width) was used to help me keep the wonky old cover from warping as things dried. This glue step took me 3 days, while I added and smoothed the PVA into every nook and cranny, allowing each bit to dry. Once this had finally all dried, I used the distressed bits of pages (maps and machinery from the steam era) along with the brown paper I'd kept from a package that had come to the door a week or two before. These got glued on with my old standby, Mod Podge.

I lined the innards  with 12" by 12" patterned papers, keeping to a black and white color way for both patterns used. Mod Podge worked really well for the trickier inner corners, etc. Next, I cut the decorative edged strips used to cover the book's raw edges, and Podged those into place. Die cut letters and gadgets I added embossing powder to before gluing into place. The clock face is from Plush Possum Studio, my older blog. This was originally from a 1907 or 1908 magazine in my own collection of antique ephemera. I used it as an afterthought.

3 of the Ingredients were things normally destined for trash or recycle. These included the brown shipping paper, the foam core remnant, and the unused, slightly wonky vintage (not antique) book.

I am still not done with the embellishing part. You see, every time I look at this project, even though it is completely dry and in use today, I think of MORE things that could be done to it!
:)

For the clock, or rather, watch face, you can visit its page at my older blog HERE.

The final ingredient: Enjoyment of the trash-to-treasure process!

Thanks to Carolyn Dube for the really enjoyable and challenging prompt!