Papercraft and Story Book Treasures

I have plunged feet first into the magic and art of words, words printed neatly onto soft pages and then lifted off again and shaped into quaint little pictures. Having discovered paper and book art, I have become completely obssessed and I want to learn how to transform the glorious invention of paper into eye-dazzling decoratives like these by Sue Blackwell.

I want to learn how to make paper from scratch, I want to learn how to sculpt it into 3D, craft it into colourful and texturised murials and I want to mould it into one of my favourite things on this planet - the book and then pluck it out again and craft it into still story-book life!


And so, I'm halfway there with my new paper-cutting board and knife, my scraps of handmade paper and an old book ready to make the characters and the props but I cannot start yet until I have my own creative space and until I get my own room or more to the point, my own house, my tools will have to stay nice and flat and untouched in a crafts box. For now, I can mess about with my Origami kit...

...the other thing that's rekindling my lust for words is a whole new pile of books I've treated myself to, some I should have read a long time ago! The End of Mr Y, The God of Small Things, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, The Help and my favourite so far: The Time Traveler's wife. I love new books and I love it even more when I enjoy each one, knowing that I can add the author to my list of 'ones to watch'...although these freshly printed darlings won't be test dummies for my book sculpture projects!

Child's play

Today I fell into a place where children's minds expand; they twist and turn through stories, their imaginations satisfied with adventures inked on fresh pages.

For my Writing for Children class, I have to read a children's fictional novel...something I haven't done since I was a child. And yet all these years of writing and reading, struggling to develop and perfect my technique to reach adequate adult standards, I have missed something quite wonderful indeed. Normally I'd bypass the children's section in bookshops, mainly because I'd find noisy, rambling tykes causing a ruckus while their mothers peruse the shelves for something suitable. But I strolled into Foyles this afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed my browse! To my suprise there were more adults in there than children even though it's half-term! The covers were shiny and resplendent, mythical creatures and enchanting worlds splashed across the walls of that corner...I made my choices after a long gander and I haven't been that absorbed in a long time.

Halfway through the Rebel by J.R Andersen, and I'm still entertained. This isn't supposed to happen, aren't I meant to feel like a 'big kid' that needs to look at more prestigious texts in order to better my writing? Well I say that I look at tube carriages now and nearly a third of the passengers have their noses tucked deep in epic children's stories...a market I can get on with perhaps? And yet I almost forgot that most of my enthusiasm for wanting to be a writer occured when I was a child; writing until I was told to go to bed; storing novel after novel on my computer and even further back, tucking away the typewriter carefully after heavy-duty use. I lost that enthusiasm as I got older and more cynical. Adulthood makes you question everything for the negative outcomes, children question for the excitement of the positive.

And so, from now on, you'll find me drawing out my characters instead of meticulously bullet-pointing them out, writing from the pictures in my head instead of constructing a 'logical' sketch and reading books about fairies and wizards instead of those that present us with the failures and woes of the depressing old thing we call 'life'.