A 100% non-profit Art Publication                                                Click on any of the Menu Buttons
located on Route 66                                                                                            on the left and cruise
in the Galaxies of Cyberspace!                                                                   to your favorite hot spots.

Rubber Road
Scenic Byway:

Altered Photos

By Jeni Calkins
Scrampers Love Bug Newbies
Scramping Design Team

Photos by Penny Calkins

My mom travels to wonderful exotic places around the world and take lots of great photos. On her last trip, I asked her to save her extra (reject) photos that didn’t make it into her photo album for use in my artwork. She gave me a wonderful bag of photos, and I just fell in love with the people in these pictures. However, the photos often had some type of problem. To fix that, I altered the photos by sanding the bad stuff away, unifying the color with inks and adding interests with stamps and collage elements. When I was finished altering the photos, I wanted the faces to tell a story so I bound them into a simple book with a brief history of what they have experienced during their turbulent lives in China.

Supplies:

Rubber Stamps (After Midnight Art Stamps)
Rubber Stamps (Sunday International, Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers)
Art Moulds – Krafty Lady – (After Midnight Art Stamps)
Wizard Die Cut & Embossing System – (After Midnight Art Stamps)
Distress Ink - (Ranger)
Brilliance Inkpad - Gold (Tsukineko)
Acrylic Paint - Metallic Kim Gold (Delta Ceramcoat)
The Ultimate (Crafters Pick)
Metallic Rub-ons (Craft-T Products)
Sand Paper - Variety of Grits (Hardware Store)
Container of Water Large Enough To Fit Photos
Polymer Clay (Fimo)
Old Coins Scanned Images from Old Books
Postcard Mahjong Game Tiles Printed on Text Weight Paper
Journaling Printed on Text Weight Paper
Scraps of Black and Copper Cardstock and Copper Sheets
Jump Rings
 

Instructions for Altering Photos:

This only works with processed photos – computer printed photos will not work.

1. Tear the edges of some of the photos if desired.

2. Soak photos in water for five minutes. 3. Sand off any part of the photo you want to remove concentrating on the edges of the photo. Use different grits of sand paper to achieve different results. The finer the grit, the more of the photo that will be removed. Coarse grit will give more scratches. Rinse in water. Blot dry.

4. While still wet, rub ink around the outside of the photo directly from the inkpad. Avoid central image or faces. This will give the photo a unifying color while highlighting the focus image.

5. Once dry, stamp images onto photo.

Directions for making the book: 1. The book is made entirely from the photos. The only paper/cardstock used is for the embellishments.

2. Half of the photos are torn around the edge, and the other half are left intact. Lightly sand the backs of the altered photos that were left whole and paint with two coats of acrylic paint, let air dry.

3. Make embellishments. a. Tear scanned images and age by rubbing with distress inkpads. b. Using a Wizard and coins, emboss scraps of cardstock (misting with water helps). Trim and highlight with Metallic Rub-ons. c. Fill Krafty Lady Art Moulds will polymer clay, bake according to the directions. Highlight detail with Metallic Rub-ons.

4. Stamp the backs of the painted photos and embellish with scanned images.

5. Glue the torn altered photos to the back of the intact painted photos.

6. Assemble the book by punching holes along the edge and attaching jump rings.

7. Glue on Embellishments.

If you would like to print this technique including a near-full size image of the layout, click here.  Once you've saved or printed the technique sheet, use your browser's back button to return.

Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to obtain this file.  If you do not have Adobe Acrobat, click here to download and install.