Handmade Houseplants

by Corrie Beth Hogg

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Handmade Houseplants is a new papercrafting book by Corrie Beth Hogg published by Timber Press and due out 4th Sept, 2018. This is a substantial book, 300 pages in full color in ebook and paperback formats.

I've seen and reviewed a lot of papercrafting books, and I'd yet to see one which is specifically aimed at sculpting whole plants in planters. These really are funky and pretty realistic and just brimming over with fun. This book is not intended for absolute purists, almost every project uses paint, wetting, papier maché or other techniques to provide leaf structure and other details to the plants. Many of these would make a great fun weekend project with young(ish) to older kids.

The book is arranged in chapters with a logical and easily followed format. The introduction and general tutorials / intro skills chapters (~10% of the page content) cover concepts and supplies as well as the techniques which are common to most of the projects which follow.

The largest proportion of the book is given over to specific plants along with a pictorial tutorial for each project. There are 30 different plants by my count and the most popular and enduring houseplants are included. The tutorials include full color photos and range from 2-8 pages, average ~6.

There are several bonus projects, including a centerpiece, place cards, a garland and a trellis.

All of the templates are included in a reduced size (increase them to 133% for full size).

There's a useful concise index and author bio included at the end.

Four stars, some worthwhile and appealing sculptures here.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.