Usborne's Big Book of Papercraft!

It's no surprise I love Usborne books (I even sold them for a time!), and this is one of the DIY books that they are so well known for. The Big Book of Papercraft is a book I found for Ani at the library. She loves doing any sort of craft, and Usborne's DIY books are so easy for quite a range of ages. There are pictures for each step, detailed notes for the readers, and a great example on each two page spread to give you an idea.

Ani looked through the entire book a few times before comitting to a few she really wanted to make. I didn't necessarily take photos of all of those, I took photos of some of the ones *I* would want to do. The crafts are really quite varied in this book, and I can really see this book being a part of an art library for many ages and stages for a family. Those types of books make great gifts. Wink!

A few of the projects involve weaving of some sort, and even give instruction for many different styles of weaving, as you can see above. I especially love the zig-zag look on the right-hand side, halfway down the page. I've never seen that before in a papercraft book!

This project is of course, of a cityscape, but it's also a project that could be so multifaceted, and all just with tearing paper to different shapes and sizes, and using your imagination to 'fill in the blanks'. You could easily do this project with any landscape, and fill in 'the missing pieces' of the picture. It's so open-ended. I also see this project as being really fun to make super-sized, and creating puppets (on a popsicle stick or wooden spoon?) and having a puppet show.

This craft is of a collage. It's hard to see by the photos, but aside from paper, there are all sorts of goodies in this collage including googly eyes, fur, beads, glue, string, feathers, etc. I see this project as a great first step in having kids create their own cards for family members and friends. Wouldn't this giraffe scene be fun on the front cover of a hand-written note? I loved collage as a kid and so maybe I'm a bit biased, but the college projects in this book are so well done, and really give great instructions for more if the child is older and wants to get a bit more detailed. 

Ani of course loving her craft time, this time focusing on weaving through a star of David. We renewed this book from the library for another three weeks, so I know we'll have another craft project or two to complete before we have to give it back.  The options really are endless with this DIY book and just give the child a place to start. Check it out!