“depeche mode: FAST FASHION”
Altered Book featuring a Domino
by Leigh Snaith-Brunton ~ The Sharpie Domino Queen (Design Team Leader)

For this project you will need a small child’s hardboard book, a wooden Doublecross domino, an assortment of patterned papers, fashion, fabric and sewing related ephemera. Once you’ve got all those assorted goodies gathered you can start preparing the book for altering.

Start by deciding the placement of the Doublecross domino windows and outline it’s location with a pencil on the cover of the book. The book I used has 3 pages and a front and back cover. Slowly cut out the marked area with a craft knife starting with the cover and continue through all 3 pages but leave the back cover. The altered domino is glued to the back cover and can be seen through each window. Remove the glossy paper coating from the entire book with sand paper. (Tip: use a sand paper bit with a Dremel tool to speed up the process.) Clean the book with a damp paper towel to remove the dust. Then paint the entire book with white gesso and put aside to dry.

Alter the Doublecross domino (discontinued wooden domino game) by stamping the fashion lady image (Stamp Oasis) onto the domino with coal black Ancient Page dye ink (ClearSnap) and heat set with an embossing heat gun. Colour the image with Sharpie markers (Sanford Co.). Stain the background and sides of the domino with a Pigment Pen (Ranger) by randomly applying the colour to the domino and smudging the ink with a piece of paper towel. Add detail to the lady’s necklace with dots of metallic gold (fine point) and edge the domino with a broad point DecoColor opaque paint pen. Apply a coat of Judikins Diamond Glaze to the surface of the domino for a glass-like surface, which preserves the design.

Now that the book is dry you can alter it to your hearts content. There’s really no rules on what you can and can’t do, just have loads of fun and play with it! I based each page around a vintage collectible card collection that belonged to my Grandfather. The cards I decided to use depict fashion through the ages. Scan and print out the cards or colour copy them - you don’t want to use the real ones! I then selected pieces of patterned papers, yellowed pages from old books, vintage sewing imagery (Stampington & Company) and fabric swatches to compliment each fashion card. Embellish each page with bits of sewing cotton, buttons, rhinestones, pins, clothing price tags and size stickers etc. Glue everything in place with Aleene’s Fast Grab glue. I also added handwritten text and Dymo labels, the labels give the years for each fashion card.

Alter the front and back covers in the same manner. For the cover title I spelt out ‘depeche mode’ in Making Memories ransom stickers and ‘Fast Fashion’ with a Dymo label maker. I added the album cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Playing the Angel’ (gleaned from a store advertisement) because they’re my all time favorite band and the inspiration for this issue’s theme! Then add touches of metallic gold to each page with DecoColor metallic gold paint pens. Colour in areas, outline and edge all the windows and pages. Finish off the entire book by antiquing with Old Paper and Walnut Stain Distress Inks by Ranger. Randomly apply the inks with the direct-to-paper technique (which means you literally apply the ink directly to the paper with the ink pad) and dab and smear the ink on with a piece of paper towel. The inks age the pages and pull all the elements together.

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