Mixed Media Glue Book

I love the idea of a free place to create and play. I also love to collage, art journal,stencil and experiment with color in new and fun ways! What better place to do all of that than a GLUE BOOK!

In case you are like, a glue book what? Hu?
Here is the basic breakdown on what a glue book is:

GLUEBOOK: A “gluebook” is a glued collage journal. The basic steps for glue booking are as follows.

1. Find a book, any size, weight, paper or type will work or you can make a book. (I will show you how to make one from recycled materials below.)

2. GLUE! One of the key things you are looking for in a glue for a glue book is something that won’t wrinkle the pages. To me this is the most important part. Beacon 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue is amazing for this! Magazine and book pages dry super flat an never wrinkle! See my little test picture below. I glued 2 pieces of  magazine and a vintage book together on the left and gesso acrylic painted butcher paper on the right. They both glued perfectly flat and permanently very quickly! YAY!

Beacon Glue Test

Beacon Advanced Craft Glue Test

3. Find some stuff to glue. This is a super fun part I have a stash of old magazine pages that I paint on and use in other projects so I pulled those out first when I start to work on my book. I also use old book pages, junk mail, newspapers, take out menus and old artwork that I created for color testing or as part of the process of a project. One of my very favorite ways to get some fun source material for my glue book is my gelli plate! I use my favorite stencils and spend an hour or so experimenting with color layers, texture and make lots and lots of colorful prints. I print on sketch paper, newsprint, butcher paper and magazine pages!

Getting ready to make some gelli prints!

Getting ready to make some gelli prints with TCW643 Infinite Lace and TCW644 Daisy Chain!

4. Glue Like CRAZY! Arrange pictures together in funny ways make a whole spread based on the color orange. Arrange hand cut or hand lettered words to go along with your pictures. Use no words on one spread and all words on another or doddle all over another! Do an entire collage of stencil gelli print pages! Anything goes! You can make a whole spread of just images, foods or colors you liked when you were 5!

Project Time!
Now that you know what a glue book is lets make one!

Glue Book Supplies

Glue Book Supplies

For this project you will need the following supplies:
• Stencils: I primarily used these stencils TCW643 Infinite Lace, TCW644 Daisy Chain, TCW654 Chica Doodles but feel free to use as many as you want especially for source material creation and gelli printing!
TCW White Gesso
Beacon 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue
• Gelli Plate
• Brayer
• 4 Old recycled cardboard boxes, like cereal boxes (enough for about 9 pages or more depending on the size of your book)
• Acrylic Paint
• Pens, pencils, markers in various colors
• Source material like magazines, Junk mail, catalogs, and painted pages for gluing
• X-acto knife of scissors

To start you will want to select a size and page count for your book. Since I had a bunch of mini cereal boxes I chose to make my book 3 x 5 and I put 10 pages in it. Next take an X-acto knife or scissors and trim down your boxes to your selected page size.

Cut down your boxes to your chosen page size

Cut down your boxes to your chosen page size

Finished trimmed page

Finished trimmed page

Next put a light coat of white gesso over all of your pages (front and back). The goal is just light coverage so you have a nice ground to work on. You can see below the words and pictures are still visible on mine. This is ok because we will be covering these pages with paint and other paper!

Gesso all of your pages with TCW White Gesso

Gesso all of your pages with TCW White Gesso

While your book pages dry we have time to create awesome source material. Have fun experimenting with a gelli plate, brayer and paint! Try interesting and different color combinations to create some really fun personalized source materials!

Gelli Printing with stencils!

Gelli Printing with stencils TCW643 Infinite LaceTCW644 Daisy Chain!

You can also try overprinting your pages and mixing your colors on the gelli plate to get some interesting effects! Below are some printed pages with stencils TCW643 Infinite LaceTCW644 Daisy Chain. I love how the delicate designs create such a beautiful intricate print.

Gelli Printing with stencils!

Gelli Printing with stencils!

Next we will bind our book!  (Don’t put that gelli plate away yet we will use it again in just a few minutes!) A quick easy way to bind is with Washi Tape! lay a strip of tape down over where 2 pages come together and they will fold open and closed easily! Plus by using washi tape you can add a fun pattern or colors to your book! Don’t forget to add an extra strip to the outside to cover your books spine!

Tip: If your book pages aren’t perfectly aligned that ok it adds personality, if you want a cleaner look trim the edges with an E-xacto knife and a metal ruler once your book is complete!

Bind your book with Washi Tape

Bind your book with Washi Tape

Now that your book is all put together  you can use your gelli plate to add a little color to each spread! This is a fun step that gets rid of all that white and sets a color palette for your spreads. You can do this with flat colors or add your stencils to the mix for a little extra flair!

use your gelli plate to add a bit of color to your book!

Use your gelli plate to add a bit of color to your book!

Once you have all of your pages gelli printed lets add a little bit of our gelli printed source material to the book. This will be your first layer of your glue book. I went through each spread and matched up my stencil prints to the colors on the book spread. This gives you the opportunity to make exciting color combinations and add a bit of character to the book before you start using it. I included 3 of my spreads below, each has a different color scheme.

Pink, Yellow and Orange Sample Spread

Pink, Yellow and Orange Sample Spread

Green and Orange Sample Spread

Green and Orange Sample Spread

Blue and Green Sample Spread

Blue and Green Sample Spread

Now pick a spread to work on and collect all of your source material together that you might want to use. You can see in my picture below. I selected a pink and blue spread to start on. I then pulled together some old photos, paint chips, library card catalog cards, magazine pages and more!

Collect all of your Source Material Together

Collect all of your Source Material Together

I used similar paint to the colors already on the spread and a star stamp I carved out of a bit of eraser to start this spread. I also used the Beacon 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue to glued down all of the items from my stash including an old stamp from Jamaica, more gelli printed page bits and the library catalog card pieces. The vintage photo is of twin sisters so I thought it would be fun to make this spread about vacation memories and push the flower theme even further. The library card and the vintage photo were very thick so the Beacon Advanced Craft Glue really helped get them down into the book very easily with no wrinkling or waiting!

First layers of glueing

First layers of glueing

You can see in the finished spread below I added more flowers from stencil TCW654 Chica Doodles and a added a lot of doodles. I love how this spread turned out!

Finished Glue Book Spread with Doodles

Finished Glue Book Spread with Doodles

To me the spread above feels like more traditional art journaling even though I did do a lot of gluing. 😉 Even though there or no “rules” to how a glue book can work I wanted to show some variation on the glue book concept so I completed another spread that is ALL gluing!

First I picked my color scheme, you can see it below. I thought it would be fun to do something totally opposite from the flowery bright spread above so I picked strong reds, oranges and greens.

Colors for Glue book spread #2

Colors for Glue book spread #2

I then used the Beacon Advanced Craft Glue and glued with wild abandon! You can see the finished spread below. I cut, ripped, and pulled bits of paper in every direction until I felt it was an interesting composition. I then glued down words cut from a vintage book to give the spread a little story!

Finished glue book Spread in Green and Red

Finished glue book Spread in Green and Red

I love how this book and both spreads turned out! The colors, patterns and textures are so fun to work with and I love how freeing it is to just glue glue glue! I would love to see your glue books and art journals so be sure to share your creations or thoughts on The Crafter’s Workshop Facebook page or by tagging The Crafter’s Workshop on InstagramTwitter or Pinterest! Also tag me @Drawriot if you share on Instagram! Until next time, keep creating and Happy New Year! ?

The Crafter’s Workshop provided me with some product to create this project. This post also contains affiliate links. The opinions I share are solely my own.

Tori Weyers
The Crafter’s Workshop Design Team Member

16 thoughts on “Mixed Media Glue Book

  1. I have heard a lot about glue book because my friend is a monthly Glue Book party host on Instagram 🙂 Thanks for the fun tutorial and also the no-wrinkle glue info. Gotta find it.

  2. WOW! First of all, Tori, I’m a big fan of your work on Instagram and had no idea you were from TCW. Imagine my surprise when I got to the sign off.

    This project had me thinking, “just close your computer, empty a cracker box and get making! I was swooning all over my laptop. So cool. Can’t wait to try it out. Great tutorial. Best thing I’ve seen in awhile. And thanks for the glue rec. I added it to my birthday wish list.

    1. Oh Nicole Thank you so much! I love creating, sharing inspiration and especially reusing items that might just get tossed out! 🙂 If you make a glue book tag me on IG I would love to see it!
      Thanks for leaving such an awesome comment!
      Tori

  3. I have just found your post having Googled ‘glue books’. I didn’t really know what they were before and thought they were like Junk Journals. Thank you so. I hope for explaining it all and the great examples and info you have so kindly put in your posted. I am looking forward to trying this out.
    Warmest best wishes from France
    Susanne

    1. Hi Susanne! So glad you found me and this post! These books are so much fun to make! If you create one and post it tag me, I would love to see it! Happy Creating!

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