The pre-loved books I have in stock have all come from a variety of different sources. Some are from my own book shelves and many of them have been kindly donated by friends and family. A few were found in charity shops, car boot sales and book stalls, whilst the remainder were sourced online.

I try to find ones of a similar size wherever I can in order to make the creation process as uniform and straightforward as possible, but this is not essential. This has as much to do with the way my brain likes to order things as much as anything else!

The only essential stipulation I make when it comes to choosing the books I work with is that they must all have a hardback cover. This is what allows the finished book sculpture to stand up by itself for display without collapsing under the weight of itself! It is also important that they have enough pages to facilitate all the necessary the details of the design (at least 350, but 450+ is best), and that they measure somewhere between around 18cm - 23cm tall.

I have the utmost respect for each and every book I fold (and, of course, their authors), and I make sure that no paper or text is ever removed from any of the pages. This means that the book remains entirely legible, should you ever feel the urge to unfold and read it! I wouldn't recommend doing so - it'd no doubt take you as many hours to do this as it took me to fold it - but the option is always there! 

The image on the left demonstrates how the pages are 'snipped into', usually just within the margin although the more complex 3 level designs like this one require the cut to go a few millimetres into the text so as to achieve that specific '3D' effect - but either way, no text or paper is ever removed... it's simply folded back to create the design.

Once the book sculpture is complete, I carefully package it up into its very own presentation box, ready for dispatch!