A CHRISTMAS STORY

Bring old stories back to life, one fold at a time, with our simple festive craft ideas using vintage books as seasonal keepsakes

- MARIE NICHOLS

PAGE TURNER

Show off favourite Christmas cards or festive photos with a stylish folded book display.

1 Take the first page of the book and fold in half vertically so the edge meets the spine.

2 Repeat for every page in the book. It will naturally start to fan out into a semicircular shape.

3 Tuck Christmas cards or festive photos into the folded pages so that they stand up.

BOOKISH VASE

1 Carefully remove the book's hard cover, leaving the stack of pages securely attached to the inner binding of the spine.

2 Take a sheet of paper the size of your open book and fold it in half vertically - the vertical fold will be the centre - then sketch and cut out one half of your vase shape.

3 Align the flat edge of your template along the spine of the book. The spine will be the centre line of your vase.

4 Lightly trace the vase shape onto the top page. Use a craft knife to carefully cut around the shape, slicing through a few pages at a time and working layer by layer until all pages are cut to the vase shape.

5 Fan out all the pages to reveal the 3D vase, stapling the front and back pages together to hold its shape.

6 Stick leaf shapes to branches and display them in the vase.

WORDY WREATH