Book Sculpture Tutorial

To make this book sculpture you will need:

Tacky Glue

1 Hardback book around 400 pages

Scissors

Firstly I opened the book in the center letting the pages fall open.  I then carefully removed the pages from the center that tended not to lie flat.

To make the center of the roses take one page and fold in half length ways, cut a thin strip along the fold (keep this strip for later).  Repeat this process giving you four strips of equal width. 

Take 1 strip and start to roll quite tightly, glue the end and then start to roll another strip, gluing when you come to the end.  Repeat this with all four strips.  You can vary the size of the flowers if you wish by adding more strips.

Now take another page and fold in half, turn and fold again, turn and fold again.  Cut out a petal shape, giving you 8 petals.  Take each petal in turn and put a little tacky glue along the bottom edge.  One by one wrap each petal around the center 'coil', slightly overlapping each petal as you go.  Gently bend the outer top edge of the petals around the outside of the rose.  Make as many of these as you like.

Next fold a page as before and cut out a leaf shape.  I used pinking shears to trim the outer edge of the tips of the leaves.  Make a snip in the base of the leaf, overlap slightly and glue.  Bend the tip of the leaf over.  Again make as many as you like.

Take the thin folded strips which you saved earlier.  Take two or three and fold in half, twist the folded end together to give a 'stem' of around 1 cm long.  Also take a few strips of paper and run across the edge of the scissors to make a curl (like you do with gift wrap ribbon).

Now take the open book and run the scissor handles along the center to flatten any little bits of page stubs.  Using tacky glue arrange and stick flowers, leaves and other bits down the center.  You can extend more flowers across the top of the pages so make a bouquet effect if you wish.  Et Voila!