Handmade Decorative Books (Passion for Paper)
Most craft books veer from artistic to eminently practical, usually including a bit of each extreme to satisfy a range of experiences. This small tome imported from England makes no bones about its perspective, offering a handful of projects to follow while introducing a new craft. In this case, the subject is bookmaking, and it was created by a longtime artisan as part of the Passion for Paper series. As the title suggests, UK author Roddis promotes any number of techniques, with a primary focus on rubber stamping coupled with clever uses of photocopying, taping, gluing, and stitching, among other tools. Her seven projects, designwise, tend toward the funky and cluttered; the first, “My Heart Has Wings,” is a stamped, embellished, unusual valentine-shaped book. Yet each project features excellent step-by-step illustrations with color photographs, along with the requisite inclusions (materials, templates as appropriate)—plus at least two to three finished variations on that particular style. Choose among flag, stitched, piano-hinged, and star-shaped books, and know that your creation will truly be one of a kind. --Barbara Jacobs