Repurpose old books into beautiful and functional works of art, learn basic paper-folding techniques and strategies to create unique book art at home with minimal tools and supplies

There are no available registration dates at this time.

Note: This class will meet online for 3 Thursday evenings (Sep 29, Oct 6, and Oct 13) 6-8 pm EST.

Carly Frei - Sculptural Folded Books - Beautiful Paper Book
Learn basic paper-folding techniques as well as strategies for creating a unique design with the pages of a recycled book.

This 3-day workshop will focus on how to repurpose old books into beautiful and functional works of art. The first part of the class will explore sculptural folded books. You’ll learn basic paper-folding techniques as well as strategies for creating a unique design with the pages of a recycled book. Folded-page books are a great way to make book art at home with minimal tools and supplies.

In the second part of this class, we will learn how to use a pattern to create a folded heart book. Using a ruler and pencil, we will mark the pages of a book and then fold each of these pages to create the shape of a heart. When the book is sitting on a shelf you’ll see a heart on the front edges of the pages.

Carly Frei - Sculptural Folded Books - Heart Shaped Book
In the second part of this class, you will learn how to use a pattern to create a beautiful folded heart book.

The third part of this class will delve into paper flowers. We will learn a variety of ways to cut, curl, and glue book pages into beautiful flowers. You will then take your flowers and create an elegant bouquet or use the flowers to add to your previous folded books.

Carly Frei - Sculptural Folded Books - Vase with paper flowers
Learn a variety of ways to cut, curl, and glue book pages into beautiful flowers.

Tools & Supplies:

  • 3 old books: look for strong paper, try folding a little corner to see if it tears, a nice hardcover design/color, good binding, and nothing too big or too small so around 200-500 pages (and one book with at least 226 pages to fold a heart), can find at a thrift store, old readers digest books are a good example of what to look for
  • 12-inch Ruler: T-Square rulers work best but other rulers are ok too
  • Pencil
  • Bone Folder 
  • Scissors
  • X-acto Blade
  • Hot Glue or other strong tacky glue that dries quickly
  • Quilling tool or a skinny wooden skewer with a flat end, like a kabob skewer
  • Approximately 10 feet of soft aluminum craft wire or recycled wire from electrical work (will want to strip the plastic off if you go this route). Can be any thickness as long as the wire is easily bendable with your fingers
Unique recycled book turned into a piece of art
Repurpose old books into beautiful and functional works of art.

Photos and header image by Carly Frei

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Instructor: Carly Frei

Carly Frei loves creating art with old books and also enjoys painting and using any other kind of materials to make art that you can imagine! She has a degree in art education from Luther College where she was first introduced to book art through a book making class. Carly taught middle school art for 5 years and has a passion for helping students create through their own inspirations. She also has her own business, Fiction Reshaped (fictionreshaped.com), where she creates book art from recycled books. Besides creating art she loves spending time with her family, reading, watching movies, and playing with their dog and cat.

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