Hedgehogs and Hearts

A little family of hedgehogs moved in on our workshop at the end of February! Here are a couple of close ups too...Click here for a video tutorial on folding your own recycled book hedgehog. There is another version here.

Lots of fast and furious folding going on! Here are some of our other projects...

For tree folding instructions click here.

And for this particular heart folding free pattern and tutorial click these links.

For the small heart, butterfly and star click here to link to the Fold Your Own Book ebay page and Facebook page.

And below are your entries for the "Cut It" challenge this month. Don't forget next month's is "Fold It" in keeping with our February demos.

Folded book art

Our February workshop is coming up on Wed 24th Feb, so I know I am earlier than normal with the blog, but I want to give you chance to find your perfect books for our book folding demos! 

And yes I know this first project is hearts again, and I know we will be past Valentine's day, but this is a good starter project for following a book folding pattern. We have two alternatives available - the larger heart above or the more petite one below. Mandy and I will be on hand to show you how.

The books used came from Pound Land in Epsom. Also The Works is another possibility for new books. If you prefer to buy from charity shops make sure you check the quality of the pages as if they are too thin they may tear. The larger heart pattern needs a hardback book that has 216 pages minimum and minimum height of 21.5cm. (I used Justine Henin's Biography from the Pound Shop which was 250 pages and height 21cm and it was fine - 6 of these available on the night and you may find more in other Pound Lands) The smaller heart pattern needs a hardback book - minimum height 19cm and minimum 170 pages. The hearts are the more advanced project of the evening and do require measuring before folding. Rulers and sharp pencils will be available but if you prefer to bring your own then please do. We also have several bone folders available for use, but again if you have your own feel free to bring it along.

We do have a couple of alternatives if you don't fancy all the measuring. Karen will be showing you how to fold your paperback books into these cute little hedgehogs - no measuring required but a fair amount of folding. If you want to have a go at these little chaps then please bring a paperback book with at least 180 pages. Size of book will determine size of hedgehog, so no minimum book height. (If you can face it this early in the year she can also show you how to make book folded Christmas trees!)

If you don't want to destroy a whole book, but instead just tear out a few pages (!) then you can revisit some of the flower folding techniques that we have covered in previous years, but this time use book pages instead. You may even want to do this as well as a folded book as they make good embellishments to decorate your works of art. (we have some books left over from previous book page projects, but you may prefer to source your own for this too.)

And if you really can't bear to destroy books at all then have another go at iris folding with Michelle!

Straight out of the pages of a book...

We had a ripping time on Wednesday - tearing pages out of The Bronte Sisters collection, Field Guide to Birds, The Compleat Angler and the The Home Gardening Encyclopedia to name but a few - all in the name of cardmaking! There were even a few sheet music, dictionary pages and road atlas pages that found their way on to our cards. We showed no mercy! (Please note that no first editions were hurt or damaged in the making of our cards. We had bought the pre-loved books from charity shops with the specific purpose of making cards out of them!)

We used pages for both backgrounds and embellishments. Michelle got chance to demonstrate the iTop gadget for making buttons and badges. We also die cut, doodled, stamped, distressed and watercoloured using our watercolour markers. See below for our creations.

Not sure whether it is appropriate or not to be tearing up books when it is World Book Day this week (Thurs. 6th March), although you could say we are celebrating books through art!

Double demo post...

Been a busy half term, so am combining the post-January workshop post with the pre-February post if that makes any sense at all! So without further ado, here are some of the piccies from the January die cut and die cut negative workshop. Thanks to Kay and Michelle for their demos.

This month our theme is "Book Page projects". We will be using pages from second hand books, dictionaries etc as backgrounds or to create embellishments. Here is a little taster.

Also your challenge - due in for the March workshop is to create a book page journal page (see sidebar and Pinterest for more details). You can have a go at the workshop or tear out a page to take home with you. Here's a couple I made earlier - quite enjoyed the doodling and poetry. See if you can guess the books they are taken from!! (If you look closely you should see big clues!)

Dictionary or Encyclopedia page

Book page poetry

For further details of all the journal challenges click here or on the sidebar for the instruction page.