Get crafty with books

Don’t toss old books away when you have finished reading them. You can make fun crafts with them. Try some of these ideas.

Book safe You will need:

Thick hard-covered book. You can buy books cheaply at garage sales, library sales, old book shops or just around the house. A sharp craft knife Hack saw

Epoxy or thin super glue

Clamps

Felt or decorative paper

How to make

1. Carefully remove the book cover completely from the pages by cutting down the hinge line.

2. Draw a guide line to show where you want to cut out the safe area.

3. Using the saw, cut out the marked area in the book starting from the spine.

TIP: When cutting put pressure on the stack of pages so they won’t buckle while cutting. Clamping the pages helps the book hold its shape.

4. Lay the book back in its cover. Glue the back page of the book to the back cover.

5. Paint the inside of the safe with glue to hold the pages together.

6. Apply glue to the remaining back spine of the book to glue the front cover back on.

7. Glue felt or paper to the inside.

Book tree

You will need

1 paperback book between 130-170 pages

glue

How to make

1. Remove the cover off the book

2. Start folding the pages by turning the right hand top corner of the page down to the spine of the book, as far as it will go, until you have a nice sharp fold at the top of the spine where the page is attached.

3. Fold the same page again so that it is halved, and the right hand side is aligned down the spine of the book.

4. Fold up the triangle that is sticking out at the bottom and tuck it in to make a straight bottom edge.

TIP: Use a tool with a sharp flat edge to get into the tightly folded pages at the top and help press the folds down to get a sharp neat fold.

5. Keep on until you have folded all the pages. It can be helpful to clamp the already folded pages together.

6. Glue the first and last folded page together.

7. Add decorations or spray paint.

8. You can place the tree on a table or mount on top of a candlestick.

Book lamp

You will need:

6 hardback books 1 table lamp (base and shade)

Drill

Drill piece (must be slightly bigger than shaft of lamp)

Rubber washer Lightbulb

How to make

Drill a hole through the centre of each book then stack them on to the shaft of a lamp base in desired arrangement.

You can alternate cover colours or turn books at different angles.

Add shade and lightbulb.