Book vase: making vases out of books ~ DIY
My bookshelf is bursting at the seams. To make room, I sorted out a few and turned thick paperbacks into a flower vase. The glass tube of a vanilla pod can be inserted in the middle, so also real flowers can be placed in the vase.
For the small narrow vase in the picture I cut a very thick paperback book with almost 500 pages after a pre-drawn template in form. For the bulbous vase I have two thick paperbacks with a total of about 900 pages processed. For larger vases, two books should be used in the same format with a similar typeface. The books should have 900 to 1,000 pages, so that the vase is nicely densely packed. I make sure beforehand that the book pages of each book can be well fanned out.
Mark cutting template
As a template, half of the later vase shape is drawn on the book cover or the first inside. With a compass, I drew the round half of the vase on the book and pulled a straight line upwards with a ruler (picture 3). However, any other arbitrary shape can be recorded. It should only be easy to cut. Too many corners in the template make the cutting more difficult. The shape is cut into the book with a very sharp cutter. My knife was not sharp enough in the meantime and therefore small areas are slightly frayed. During cutting, the cutter should be as sharp as possible and held straight, so that the shape remains the same over all sides. I usually cut through seven to eight pages carefully and work my way down the book slowly.
The bound left side of the books must remain completely, otherwise the book pages fall apart. If the paperbacks are cut, the book covers can be separated. Then the books are glued to the outer pages of the book with glue or craft glue. With clothespins, the vase can be kept in shape until the glue has dried. In the middle there is a small circle that offers space for a test tube. For narrow vases, glass vials of vanilla pods or other spice jars can also be plugged in so that real flowers can enter the vase. But also dried flowers, straw or paper flowers look great in the vase.
Required material:
- For narrow vases a paperback with about 500 pages
- For a bulbous larger vase two paperbacks each with 450-600 pages
- compasses
- pencil
- Cuttermesser
- White glue
- Cut resistant surface
