Suitable for beginners
Papercrafts and Origami is a massive book of over 500 pages and covers 300 projects in papier-mâché, decoupage, collage, origami, and paper decorating and construction projects. Despite the volume offered, I found this book very ordinary and many of the projects are quite rustic in appearance.
Each project is well illustrated with clear photographs for each step and the end product. For some reason, though, the instructions below each photograph are divided into two tiny columns, with two or three words fitting the width of a column. Despite the gap between the columns, it’s tempting to read across the line at first, which is irritating if you’re already distracted by trying to do the project at the same time. I would have liked to see a section on making handmade paper included in this book, which is essentially touted as a complete compendium of paper crafting. Also, the organisation of the book’s contents are such that the basic techniques for papier-mâché and decoupage are given separately at the beginning of the book instead of being placed before their respective sections, and there are two paper decorating sections with the construction and origami sections splitting them. The projects are not listed, so I would suggest bookmarking the instructions for specific projects to make searching for them later a bit quicker.
Some of the photographs of the end products also struck me as being items that a child might make at school. Since the instructions and style of the book seems aimed at adults, this book would probably be useful for arts and crafts teachers as an idea starter for workshops with older children. I don’t feel the book itself is suitable for children as it is extremely heavy (even as a paperback) and cumbersome, even though many of the projects are fairly easy.
The plus side of the size of the book is that the weight of the pages keeps the book open almost flat at every page, including those at the very beginning and end. The extra-large size has also allowed for quite a generous gutter so nothing is hidden in the crease.
On the whole, I prefer the Home Guide to Craft’s short papercraft section over this book. Papercrafts and Origami is more suited to beginners to papercrafting.
Papercrafts and Origami is available from Amazon.com
