Customer Reviews

The Art of Handmade Paper and Collage: Transforming the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary

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This is the best collage book I have ever read. I love the look of collage, but have always had a hard time getting started. The beautiful artwork and advice here have helped me to create many masterpieces.

The author starts out by taking you step by step though the papermaking process. Materials used include mostly common household items and scraps. Making a mold & deckle is also demonstrated.

Next, many interesting surface techniques are covered including wet/dry embossing, glue-gun embossing, coffee overdyeing, watercolor dyeing, & crayon resist. The collage section has tips on collecting, sorting, arrangement, & materials.

I loved the many unique projects that followed including making envelopes, greeting cards, fabric motifs, paper sculptures & kaleidoscope collages. There are also some templates and a great list of suppliers in the back

I saw the ads for this book in Somerset Studio (coincidently this book is very like their style of photos and intructions), and had to have it the day it was released! The Photos are glorious and illustrate the authors points well. You will love this book if you are a begginer or have been pack-ratting and collaging for years!

I received this book on ILL from a library yesterday and am buying it for myself today. Everyone who handled the book in the library was impressed by its beauty. It seems clearly written, easy enough for beginners and stimulating for more experienced crafters.

As an artist myself, i have always been fascinated with the wide range of possibilities that come from making your own paper. When I picked up the book i already knew the basics, and had been making paper by hand for quite some time. I really liked the way she included many ways to push the papermaking process a step further (ie. watercolor dyeing, embossing etc.) to actually transform the paper into something more "artistic". The projects outlined in the book i saw as really great STARTING points for my own work. I felt that many of her final projects had a Martha Stewart quality that didn't really appeal to me. My suggestion? Make your own templates for the projects instead of using hers in the back of the book. Your final product will be much more rewarding if it's your own creation.

As did some of the other reviewers, I checked this book out of the library first, and soon decided I wanted to have my own copy for reference. It's a shame this book is out of print and appears to be the author's only book.
There are many collage books out there, and this is one of the best. The writing is clear and concise, and the photos are wonderful. I've experimented some with handmade paper and collage, and this book inspires me to explore further.

Particularly interesting is her section on surface design by embossing. She shows how to lay the wet paper over found objects, or onto a intricate raised design created by a glue gun, or onto a shape cut from illustration board. I can't wait to try this.

In the Projects section, handmade paper shapes and the wrapping paper collage also look fascinating. This latter collage is formed on freezer paper so that it can be removed when dried, complete with irregular, free form edges.

Her chapter on collecting and organizing materials are also quite useful, and provide all of us with justification (if we need it) to collect and hoard a rich selection of materials.

The author somehow manages to provide enough guidance for the beginner to learn the techniques and get started with the projects provided, at the same time encouraging creativity and moving on to independent work.

I just bought this book on Amazon after checking it out from the library. It is excellent and I know I'll find it very useful. I thought the title could perhaps turn some folks off (as it nearly did for me,) since it leads with "The Art of Handmade Paper" and adds "and collage." I do a lot of art work and making paper is something I probably won't add to the list but collage is something I do in one form or another all the time. If I wanted to make paper, I would certainly find those instructions very useful. However, the bulk of the book is using those papers in collage - and this is the part I am finding particularly useful. There are a number of ideas that I hadn't thought of - and since handmade paper is readily available for sale, that part is easy enough to take care of. Actually, I have been working with painted and dyed paper towels, and realized that the texture of my paper towel sheets is almost identical to the handmade paper sheets in the book. A million great ideas for using my "altered" paper towels immediately came into my mind as I read through the book. I am very pleased to have found it and look forward to having my copy arrive in the mail so I don't have to give it back to the library.

After seeing so many other artists add bits of handmade paper into collages, I had to try it. This book is great--explains the process, with lots of color photos to help you along the way. I was able to use everything on hand to make my first handmade papers, including bits of dried flowers and leaves from my garden. There are lots of interesting projects in the book, and I will get around to some others. Right now I'm just enjoying the variety of papers and shapes that I can create for my collage projects already in progress. Worth every penny!